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SILENT TIMES. 
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MAKING THE MOST OF LIFE. 
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GIRLS: FAULTS AND IDEALS. 
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YOUNG MEN: FAULTS AND IDEALS. 
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THE EVERY DAY OF LIFE. 

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GLIMPSES THROUGH LIFE'S WINDOWS. 

Selections from Dr. Miller's writings, arranged by Eva- 
lena I. Fryer. 

1 6mo, with portrait, ornamental binding 1 75 cents. 



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GLIMPSES 
THROUGH LIFE'S WINDOWS 



SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS 

. OF 

j. r: *miller, d.d. 

Author of " Silent Times," " Making the Most of Life,' 
" The Every Day of Life," etc. 



ARRANGED BY 

EVALENA I. FRYER 



t^AU 893 . 

NEW YORK: 46 East i 4 th Street 
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY 

BOSTON: 100 Purchase Street ^ 






• Copyright, 1893, 
By T. Y. CROWELL & CO. 



n-t&yfo 



Typography by J. S. Cushing & Co. 



Presswork by S. J. Parkhill & Co 



This book claims only to give " glimpses. " 
In these hurried days many people have time 
to read only paragraphs. Ofttimes it happens, 
too, that merely in a few well-chosen sentences, 
a lesson is taught or an inspiration given which 
helps and blesses a life for many days. 

Many of the paragraphs here gathered contain 
incidents or illustrations through and by which 
the truth is presented. Every one knows the 
value of good illustrations. They help to make 
the teaching clear, and they help to fix the 
lesson in the memory. 

In these days of young people's societies, — 
Christian Endeavor and others with like object, — 
there is a desire for books with short paragraphs 
suitable for reading by members at the meetings. 
For this purpose, among others, it is hoped that 
these " glimpses " may prove of value. 

The book is sent out in the loving hope that 
its words may stimulate many to a truer, better, 
richer, holier life. In this earthly state, with its 
hindrances and weights, we need to be reminded 

continually that — 

" he most lives 
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best." 

E. I. F. 



GLIMPSES THROUGH LIFE'S 
WINDOWS. 



Once I went up the winding staircase of 
Bunker Hill monument. Its great walls shut in 
the view on all sides. I could see only the bit 
of dusty floor at my feet and the cheerless walls 
that surrounded me. But as I climbed up the 
staircase there were windows here and there, and 
through these I looked out and caught glimpses 
of a very beautiful world outside, — green fields, 
rich gardens, picturesque landscapes, streams flash- 
ing like silver in the sunshine, the sea yonder, and 
far away, on the other hand, the shadowy forms 
of great mountains. How little, how dark and 
gloomy, seemed the close, narrow limits of the 
staircase as I looked out upon the illimitable view 
that stretched from the windows ! 

This earthly life, hemmed in as it is by its limi- 
tations and its narrow horizons, is like that tower 
1 — a little patch of dusty floor, with cheerless walls 
5 



6 THE NEST IN THE CRAG. 

around it. But while we climb heavily and wea- 
rily up its steep, dark stairway, there lies outside 
the thick walls a glorious world, reaching away 
into eternity, filled with the rarest things of God's 
love. And through the windows of revelation we 
get glimpses of the infinite sweep and stretch of 
life beyond this hampered, broken, fragmentary 
existence of earth. Beyond earth comes heaven. 



SHje first in tJje Crag. 

Two little birds went out one lovely spring 
morning to build their nests. One found a tree 
and built her nest in its branches. It was a very 
pleasant place. Blossoms filled the air with fra- 
grance. A river murmured beneath, its waters 
rippling and sparkling in the sunlight, and at 
night reflecting the silver stars in the blue sky 
overhead. But one night there was a great storm, 
and floods rolled through the river's channel, 
overflowing its banks. In the morning the tree 
was gone, and the bird's home had vanished. She 
had built too low. She had planned only for the 
soft, sunny days and the quiet, starry nights. 

The other bird soared up among the crags and 
built her nest in a cleft of one of the old rocks. 
By and by the nest was full of bird-life. The 



POST-MORTEM KINDNESSES. 7 

storm that swept through the valley below swept 
about the old crag, but could not shake it. In 
the morning the sunshine streamed forth again, 
and the birds' home was safe. 

Are you building your soul's home among the 
green boughs of mere human friendship, in life's 
beautiful vales, close by the river of earth's pleas- 
ures, where the sweet perfumes breathe? Or are 
you building up amid the crags, in the Rock of 
Ages ? Are you building merely for sunny days, 
or for floods and storms as well ? 



Postmortem Itinlmeggeg. 

Do not keep the alabaster boxes of your affec- 
tion sealed and laid away until your friends are 
dead. Fill their days with tenderness. Speak 
your words of commendation while their ears can 
hear them. The things you mean to say when 
they are gone, say before they go. The flowers 
you mean to send for their coffins, send before- 
hand to brighten and sweeten their homes ere 
they go out of them. I have often said — and I 
know I speak for thousands of other weary, plod- 
ding toilers — that if my friends have vases laid 
away, filled with the perfumes of sympathy and 
affection, which they intend to break over my 



8 LIFE OUT OF DEATH. 

dead body, I would far rather they would bring 
them out along my toilsome days and open them, 
when I can enjoy them and be refreshed by them. 

" What use that the spurring paean roll 
When the runner is safe beyond the goal? 
What worth is eulogy's blandest breath 
When whispered in ears that are hushed in death? 
No, no; if you have a word of cheer 
Speak it while I am alive to hear." 

Post-mortem kindnesses do not cheer the 
burdened spirit. Tears falling on the icy brow 
of death make poor and too tardy atonement for 
coldness, neglect, and cruel selfishness in life's 
long, struggling years. Appreciation when the 
heart is stilled has no inspiration for the spirit. 
Justice comes too late when it is pronounced only 
in funeral eulogium. Flowers piled on the coffin 
cast no fragrance backward over weary days. 

3Ltfe ©ttt of ©eatfj. 

The valley of Chambra, in India, is rich in its 
fertility and beauty. The cause of all this fertility 
is a wonderful spring of water which flows from 
a hillside, and furnishes water f or the irrigation of 
the whole valley, and for the use of the people 
who live there. 



LIFE OUT OF DEATH. 9 

Once, says the legend, the valley was without 
water, and there was desolation everywhere. 
The plants and trees were all withering, and the 
people were dying of thirst. The princess of the 
place took the sorrows of her subjects much to 
heart. She consulted the oracle to learn how 
the constant curse of drought could be removed. 
The oracle said that if the princess of the land 
would die for the people, abundant water would 
be given. She hastened to give her life. Her 
grave was made, and she was buried alive. Then 
forth from her tomb came a river which flowed 
down into the valley, restoring all languishing life 
in field and garden, and sending water to every 
door for the famishing people to drink. Ever 
since, the streams have continued to flow from 
the wonderful spring, carrying their precious 
benediction to every home. 

This old heathen legend beautifully illustrates 
what Christ did. The world was perishing for 
want of the water of life ; Jesus died and was 
buried, and from his cross and broken grave poured 
out the river of the water of life for the quench- 
ing of the world's thirst. Its streams run every- 
where, and wherever they flow the wilderness has 
been made to blossom like a garden of roses. 
Beauty blooms wherever they run. All the world's 
joy comes from the grave of our risen Lord. 



10 A PICTURE OF PEACE. 

a picture of peace. 

In the Pitti Palace at Florence hangs a picture 
which represents a stormy sea, with wild waves 
and black clouds and fierce lightnings flashing 
across the sky. Wrecks float on the angry waters, 
and here and there a human face is seen. Out 
of the midst of the waves a rock rises, against 
which the waters dash in vain. It towers high 
above the crest of the waves. In a cleft of the 
rock are some tufts of grass and green herbage, 
with sweet flowers blooming, and amid these a 
dove is seen, sitting on her nest, quiet and un- 
disturbed by the wild fury of the storm, or the 
mad dashing of the waves below her. 

The picture fitly represents the peace of the 
Christian amid the sorrows and trials of the world. 
He is hidden in the cleft of the Rock of Ages, 
and nestles securely in the bosom of God's un- 
changing love. 

En tlje l&ugsrti ^tlte. 

The law of compensation runs through all 
God's distribution of gifts. In the animal world 
there is a wonderful harmony, often noted, be- 
tween the creatures and the circumstances and 



UNCONSCIOUS MINISTRY. II 

conditions amid which they are placed. The 
same law rules in the providence of human life. 
One man's farm is hilly and hard to till, but deep 
down beneath its ruggedness, buried away in its 
rocks, are rich minerals. One person's lot in life 
is hard, with peculiar obstacles, difficulties, and 
trials, but hidden in it there are compensations of 
some kind. One young man is reared in afflu- 
ence and luxury. He never experiences want or 
self-denial, never has to struggle with obstacles 
or adverse circumstances. Another is reared in 
poverty and has to suffer toil and privation. 
The latter seems to have scarcely an equal 
chance in life. But we all know where the 
compensation lies in this case. It is in such 
circumstances that noble manhood is grown, 
while, too often, the petted, pampered sons of 
luxury come to nothing. In the rugged hills of 
toil and hardship life's finest gold is found. 

Winconmom jJBmtsttg* 

It is said that when Thorwaldsen, the Danish 
sculptor, returned to his native land with those 
wonderful works of art which have made his 
name immortal, chiselled in Italy with patient toil 
and glowing inspiration, the servants who un- 



12 UNDER THE MASTER'S HAND. 

packed the marbles scattered upon the ground 
the straw which was wrapped around them. The 
next summer flowers from the gardens of Rome 
were blooming in the streets of Copenhagen, 
from the seeds thus borne and planted by acci- 
dent. While pursuing his glorious purpose, and 
leaving magnificent results in breathing marble, 
the artist was, at the same time, and unconsciously, 
scattering other beautiful things in his path to give 
cheer and gladness. 

So Christ's lowly workers unconsciously bless 
the world. They come out every morning from 
the presence of God and go to their work, intent 
upon their daily tasks. All day long as they toil, 
they drop gentle words from their lips, and scatter 
little seeds of kindness about them ; and to- 
morrow flowers from the garden of God spring 
up in the dusty streets of earth and along the 
hard paths of toil on which their feet tread. The 
Lord knows them among all others to be his by 
the beauty and usefulness of their lives. 

WLribtx tfje Raster's JfatrtL 

A strange instrument hung on an old castle 
wa ll — so the legend runs. No one knew its use. 
Its strings were broken and covered with dust. 



UNDER THE MASTER'S HAND. 13 

Those who saw it wondered what it was and how 
it had been used. Then one day a stranger came 
to the castle gate and entered the hall. His eye 
saw the dark object on the wall, and, taking it 
down, he reverently brushed the dust from its 
sides and tenderly reset its broken strings ; then 
chords long silent woke beneath his touch, and 
all hearts were strangely thrilled as he played. It 
was the master, long absent, who had come back 
again to his castle. 

It is but a legend, yet the meaning is plain. 
In every human soul there hangs a marvellous 
harp, dust-covered, with strings broken, while yet 
the Master's hand has not found it. Is there no 
joy in your heart? Is your soul-harp hanging 
silent on the wall? Have you learned the secret 
of glad, happy days ? 

" Oh ! could the tender Christ but brush away, 

And o'er the slumbering tones his fingers sweep, 
A world would pause to catch the echoing chord 
Of music wakened 'neath the touch of God." 

Open your heart every morning to Christ. 
Let him enter and repair the strings that sin 
has broken, and sweep them with his skillful 
fingers, and you will go out to sing through all 
the day. Only when the song of God's love is 
singing in our heart are we ready for the day. 



14 THE FRAGRANCE OF PRAYER. 

SHje JFragrance oi Prager, 

In Saint John's vision of heaven the redeemed 
are represented as having in their hands " golden 
vials, full of odors, which are the prayers of saints." 
The meaning is not that the saints in glory offer 
up prayers to God. Rather, the thought seems 
to be that earth's supplications rise up to heaven 
as sweet incense — that while humble believers in 
this world are engaged in offering up prayers and 
supplications, holy odors are wafted up before God. 
There is an exquisite beauty in this thought that 
true prayer is fragrance to God. The pleadings 
and supplications of his people on the earth rise 
from lowly homes, from sick-rooms, from dark- 
ened chambers of grief where loved ones kneel 
beside their dead, from humble sanctuaries, from 
stately cathedrals, and are wafted up before God, 
as the breath of flowers is wafted to us in summer 
days from sweet fields and fragrant gardens. 
And God " smells a sweet savor." Prayer is 
perfume to him. 

keeping trjc ILiit EMrjtte* 

A writer tells of going with a party down into 
a coal mine. On the side of the gangway grew a 
plant which was perfectly white. The visitors 



KEEPING THE LIFE WHITE. 1 5 

were astonished, that there, where the coal dust 
was continually flying, this little plant should be 
so pure and white. A miner, who was with them, 
took a handful of coal-black dust and threw it upon 
the plant, but not a particle adhered. Every 
atom of the dust rolled off. The visitors them- 
selves repeated the experiment, but the coal-dust 
would not cling. There was a wonderful enamel 
on the folds of the white plant to which no finest 
speck could adhere. Living there amid clouds of 
black dust, nothing could stain its snowy white- 
ness. 

This is a picture of what every young Christian 
life should be. This is an evil world. We go 
among the ungodly continually in our daily walk 
and work. Unholy influences breathe about us ; 
but it is our mission to be pure amid all this vile- 
ness, undented, unspotted from the world. If God 
can make a little plant so that no dust can stain 
its whiteness, can he not by his grace so transform 
your heart and life that no sin can cling to you ? 
If God can keep a little flower stainless, white as 
snow, amid clouds of black dust, can he not keep 
hearts in like purity in this world of sin ? 



1 6 EACH IN HIS OWN WAY. 

3£acfj in Jfyiz ©urn Mag, 

The bird praises God by singing; the flower 
pays its tribute in fragrant incense as its censer 
swings in the breeze j the tree shakes down fruit 
from its bending boughs ; the stars pour out their 
silver beams to gladden the earth ; the clouds give 
their blessing in gentle rain ; yet all with equal 
faithfulness fulfil their mission. So among Christ's 
redeemed servants, one serves by incessant toil 
in the home, caring for a large family ; another, 
by silent example as a sufferer, patient and un- 
complaining ; another, with the pen, sending forth 
words that inspire, help, cheer, and bless ; another, 
by the living voice, whose eloquence moves men, 
and starts impulses to better, grander living ; an- 
other, by the ministry of sweet song ; another, by 
sitting in quiet peace at Jesus' feet, drinking in 
his spirit, and then shining as a gentle and silent 
light, or pouring out the fragrance of love like a 
lowly and unconscious flower ; yet each and all of 
these may be serving Christ acceptably, hearing 
at the close of each day the whispered word, 
" Well done." 



ON THE CATHEDRAL RAFTER. 1 7 

©n tfje Catjjetiral Jftafter, 

In one of the old cathedrals in Europe the 
guide bids the visitor watch a certain spot, until 
the light from a window falls upon it. There he 
sees, carved on a rafter, a face of such marvellous 
beauty that it is the very gem of the great build- 
ing. The legend is, that, when the architect and 
masters were planning the adornment of the 
cathedral, an old man came in and begged leave 
to do some work. They felt that his tottering 
steps and trembling hands unfitted him for any 
great service ; so they sent him up to the roof, 
and gave him permission to carve upon one of the 
rafters. He went his way, and day by day he 
wrought there in the darkness. One day he was 
not seen to come down, and going up they found 
him lying lifeless on the scaffolding, with his sight- 
less eyes turned upward. And there they saw a 
face carved on the rafter, a face of such exceed- 
ing beauty, that architects and great men bared 
their heads as they looked upon it, and recognized 
the master in him who lay there still in death. 

In the church of the living God we are all set 
to carve the beauty of the face of Christ, not on 
the rafters or walls of any cathedral, but on our 
own heart and life. Be it ours to do this work with 
such care and skill, that when our eyes are closed 



1 8 FINDING THE IMPRISONED KING. 

in death, men may look with reverence upon the 
beauty of the face our hands have fashioned. 
Some of us may feel ourselves too feeble, or too 
unskilled, to do any great work in this world for 
Christ ; but none are too feeble or too unskilled to 
carve the beauty of Christ on our life. And it 
may be that in the time of great revealing, it shall 
appear that some trembling disciple among us, 
timid and shrinking, whose voice is not heard in 
our meetings, whose work is in some quiet corner, 
out of sight, has wrought the beauty of Christ- 
likeness in an exquisiteness which shall outshine 
all that any even of the greatest of us have done. 



jFintung % Imprisoned Itiruj. 

There was once an old English king who was 
taken captive, and thrown into an unknown dun- 
geon. No one knew where he was, but a favorite 
minstrel determined to find him, and went from 
castle to castle among the mountain forests, play- 
ing before the bars of every dungeon some old 
melody that his king knew. At last, the weary 
king, sitting hopeless and despairing in his cell, 
heard one day a strain which roused in him all 
the memories of the past, and carried him back 



FINDING THE IMPRISONED KING. 19 

in thought to his home. The life, long slumber- 
ing in the sleep of despair, sprung up again. The 
old king answered back, and was found and re- 
stored to his throne. 

So our conscience may sleep shut up in a dark 
dungeon, chained behind iron gates and stone 
walls, while its throne is empty. But some day 
there comes a voice thrilling through the bars, 
which arouses the long silent king of the soul. It 
may be the voice of song, an old familiar cradle 
hymn or household psalm which a sainted mother 
used to sing in childhood's pure, sweet days. It 
may be some text of God's word flying like an 
arrow from heaven. It may be the death of some 
friend, or some terrible calamity like the crushing 
of an avalanche upon the soul. It may be some 
lightning flash of conviction, whose lurid glare 
reveals the awful blackness of eternity, and startles 
the slumbering soul to life. Well shall it be if 
this arousing occurs this side of death's dark 
waters, where the cross stands with its bleeding 
sacrifice, where the voice of mercy calls, where 
the angel of love may yet lead the guilty one back 
through the gate of penitence to pardon and life. 



20 GOOD MEN WANTED. 

(gooti jJHnt TOantetL 

Women's tears are precious as they are poured 
out on the paths of human suffering. Women's 
hands are soft and gentle as they minister in the 
sick room, in the hospital, in the home of poverty. 
Women's words are mighty as they come welling 
up from the bottom of loving hearts, in pleading 
with lost ones. Women's works are beautiful as 
they are wrought over all the world, in the name 
of Jesus. Women's power is well-nigh omnipo- 
tent when anointed by the Holy Ghost. Women's 
influence is most blessed in home and school and 
church. Yet, blessed and beautiful and mighty 
as is the service which the women are rendering 
to their Lord, the cause of Christ needs men as 
well. 

Men of courage are wanted to stand in the front 
ranks of truth, to resist and hurl back the assaults 
of the enemy. Men with keen intellect are 
wanted to meet the sophistries of error and the 
subtle attacks of infidelity and skepticism. Men 
with fine business abilities are wanted to carry on 
the secular affairs of God's house. Men with 
wealth are wanted to lay money gifts upon the 
altar to forward the interests of Christ's kingdom. 
Holy men are wanted to witness for Christ in the 
face of his enemies.' Men with eloquent tongues 



LIGHT ON THE BILLOW'S CREST. 21 

and burning hearts are wanted to go into all the 
dark places of the cities, into the purlieus of vice, 
into the homes of sin, to tell the story of the love 
cf God and of the cross of the Redeemer. Men 
of tender heart and loving sympathy and gentle 
touch are wanted to give comfort to the world's 
sorrow, to help other tempted men in their battles, 
to rescue the perishing out of their bondage. 



3LifliJt on tfje JStlWjs Crest. 

There is a story of a shipwreck which tells how 
the crew and passengers had to leave the broken 
vessel and take to the boats. The sea was rough, 
and great care in rowing and steering was neces- 
sary, in order to guard the heavily-laden boats, not 
from the ordinary waves, which they rode over 
easily, but from the great cross-seas. Night was 
approaching, and the hearts of all sank as they 
asked what they should do in the darkness when 
they would no longer be able to see these terrible 
waves. To their great joy, however, when it 
grew dark, they discovered that they were in 
phosphorescent waters, and that each dangerous 
wave rolled up crested with light which made it 
as clearly visible as if it were mid-day. 

So it is that life's dreaded experiences when we 



2 2 LED BY A LAMB. 

meet them carry in themselves the light which 
takes away the peril and the terror. The night 
of sorrow comes with its own lamp of comfort. 
The hour of weakness brings its secret of strength. 
By the brink of the bitter fountain grows the tree 
whose branch will heal the waters. The wilder- 
ness, with its hunger and no harvest, has daily 
manna. In dark Gethsemane where the load is 
more than mortal heart can bear an angel appears 
ministering strength. When we come to the hard, 
rough, steep path we find iron for shoes. 



3Lei fcg a ILamfc, 

The herbage of the field was nipped off close, 
and the shepherd wanted to get his sheep up to 
a higher place where there was good pasture. 
The way led over a steep bluff, however, and the 
poor things did not want to go over it. Then 
the shepherd seized a lamb and carried it in his 
arms up the nipped way to the higher ground. 
The little thing ran to the edge and looked down, 
bleating and calling for the older sheep. In a 
few moments the mother had gone up, and all the 
flock had followed her. 

We are like sheep, and are slow to follow our 
Shepherd up the steep way towards the heavenly 



BURIED SOULS. 23 

life. Then the Shepherd has to use loving 
urgency. Sometimes he takes a child to heaven 
to lead thither the mother or the father. Or he 
takes away a man's riches to save the man's soul. 
Or he lays us on a sick-bed and shuts us away 
in the darkness to compel us to think of spiritual 
things. Or he sends trouble in some form to get 
us to walk in holy paths. If we can be saved in 
no other way, it is better that we lose out of our 
life all the flowers and the sunshine, and walk 
amid thorns and in darkness, reaching home at 
last. 

JBurteti Souls* 

There is a story of an Italian nobleman, who 
took this terrible revenge on one whom he hated. 
He set him alive in a niche in the palace he was 
building, and piled row upon row of bricks and 
stones about him, until the wall closed over his 
head, and shut him in his dark and awful living 
tomb. 

Horrible as this story is, it is just what many 
men are doing with their souls. They are piling 
bricks and stones about them, walling them in, 
and leaving them there to die. In the very core 
of many a great fortune which men have gathered ; 
in the inner chamber of many a beautiful palace 



24 UNTIL HE FIND IT, 

which men have builded ; in the deepest shrine 
of many a temple of honor which men have 
reared in their own praise ; hidden away out of 
sight is a grave over which God's angels weep — 
the grave of a soul. Many a man has buried his 
manhood in his business. Many a poor slave 
has dug a deep grave for his soul with the wine- 
cup for a spade. Fashion has woven the shroud 
and pall for many a poor girl's soul. In many a 
garden of beauty and pleasure, hidden among the 
flowers, is a grave where innocence, faith, purity, 
virtue, honor, and truth lie buried. 



mnttl £?e Jin* It 

A pleasant incident is recorded of General 
Garibaldi. One evening he met a Sardinian 
shepherd, who had lost a lamb out of his flock, 
and was in great distress because he could not 
find it. Garibaldi became deeply interested in 
the man, and proposed to his staff that they 
should scour the mountains, and help to find the 
lost lamb. A search was organized, lanterns were 
brought, and these old soldiers started or! full of 
eager earnestness to look for the fugitive. The 
quest was in vain, however, and by and by all 
the soldiers returned to their quarters. Next 



THE SHADOW OF THE MOUNTAIN. 25 

morning Garibaldi's attendant found the general 
in bed and fast asleep long after his usual hour 
for rising. The servant aroused him at length, 
and the general rubbed his eyes and then took 
from under his bed coverings the lost lamb, bid- 
ding the attendant carry it to the shepherd. 
Garibaldi had kept up the quest through the 
night until he had found the lamb. 

This illustration helps us to understand how 
Jesus Christ seeks lost souls in this world of sin, 
continuing the search long after others have 
given it up, seeking until he finds. 



9Tfje Sfjafooto of tfje iWcuntatru 

When the morning sun casts the shadow of 
the sleeping volcano Etna across the fair plains 
of Sicily, over beautiful fields and smiling gardens 
and lovely landscapes, the people forbid you to 
speak of that which casts the shadow. It suggests 
the awful terrors that slumber in the mountain, and 
that any hour may burst out in fearful destruction. 
So the people will not speak of the ominous ter- 
rors. They go on making their gardens, building 
their houses, tilling their fields, singing their 
songs, trying to forget the phantom woe that 
sleeps in the air above their heads, in the tower- 



26 THE WRECKER'S LIGHTS. 

ing cone. But does forgetfulness of it shelter 
them from the awful peril that hides away in the 
quiet volcano ? 

There are many who try to keep peace in their 
hearts in the same way. Everywhere in this 
world, over sweetest joy and tenderest beauty 
and rarest hope, hangs the shadow of divine 
wrath. The consciousness of guilt casts a deep 
line of darkness on every life. But many refuse 
to think of it or to speak of it. They try to have 
peace by forgetting the curse that slumbers above 
them, the wrath of God that abides upon them. 
But this is not the peace that Christ gives. It is 
no shelter to the soul. It removes no peril. The 
woe is still there. No peace will do for a human 
soul which can ever be broken. 



In days not very long gone by wreckers used 
sometimes to set up false lights on the shore, or 
perhaps fasten a lantern on a horse and let him 
move along the beach, and thus deceive vessels 
and lure them on the rocks to be wrecked, so 
that they might plunder them. There is a story 
of an old man whose son was at sea, and had not 
been home for years. The old man was a wrecker ; 



MEET FOR THE MASTER'S USE. 27 

and one dark night he had lured a vessel on the 
rocks by false lights. When the vessel struck and 
broke to pieces, he went down to the shore to 
gather up the booty that might be washed up by 
the waves. Soon a body was cast on the sands 
at his feet. He held his lantern to the face, 
when, oh horrors ! it was his own son. 

I fear it will be so with the fathers and mothers 
who are not living right, who are not guiding their 
children aright. You are setting up false lights 
for them, and when you come to gather up the 
wreckage and booty of your lives, washed up 
on the eternal shores, your dim, lurid lights will 
reveal to you the upturned faces of your own chil- 
dren — lost. Oh, beware how you lead one of 
God's little ones astray ! 

JHeet for tfje Pasta'* WLzz. 

When one is thirsty it matters little whether 
the water is offered in a common earthen cup or 
in a golden pitcher. When one is very hungry 
and you carry him bread, he does not care 
whether you take it on a silver plate or on a 
wooden tray. So the grace of Christ may be 
carried just as well in the heart of a plain fisher- 
man as in that of a learned rabbi ; but the vessel 



28 GUIDED BY LOVE'S SONGS. 

must be clean. Christ will not send the blessing 
of eternal life to lost men through unholy lives. 
He will not honor us by putting us in trust with 
the gospel if our own hearts are unclean and 
impure. 

He who would be a winner of souls must know 
what it is to repent of sin and put it away at what- 
ever cost or sacrifice. He must have turned his 
own feet away from evil paths before he can con- 
vert others from the error of their ways. He must 
have begun to walk in godly ways before he can 
turn others to righteousness. Only holy lives can 
win the unholy to holiness and heavenliness. The 
hands that are given to Christ must not do sinful 
things after engaging in his holy work. The lips 
that speak his name must not speak wrong words. 
The feet that run his errands to-day must not 
walk in the paths of evil to-morrow. The heart 
that throbs with love at his table must not after- 
ward be thrilled with feelings of passion and hate. 
If we would be vessels meet for the Master's use 
we must have clean hands and pure hearts. 

(HtutiEti to ^Lobe's Soup, 

I have read of the fishermen, on some of the 
lonely coasts, this pleasant fact. The men go 



GUIDED BY LOVE'S SONGS. 29 

out in their boats to fish, while the women stay at 
home. Then sometimes, while the boats are out, 
fogs and vapors gather, hiding sun or stars, so 
that the men do not know which way to pull 
their boats to get homeward. At such times 
the women and the children come down close to 
the shore and sing their household songs. Far 
away on the waters, bewildered and perplexed, 
not knowing which way to turn to find their home, 
the husbands, fathers, and brothers hear the music 
as it floats out to the sea. All their bewilderment 
instantly vanishes. They know now where home 
is, and taking up their oars they ply them with 
vigor, answering back meanwhile in songs of their 
own, which tell their loved ones on the shore that 
they are coming. 

Is not something like this true of many lives 
on earth? They are perplexed and sorely tried 
in this world of sin and sorrow. They do not 
know which way to go. But they have loved 
ones at home in glory ; and these seem to speak 
out of the silences and to sing their songs on 
heaven's coasts, while their friends on earth move 
in the mists. They would help guide you in 
safety home. Oh, you fathers and mothers of 
children in heaven ; you children of parents in 
heaven ; all who have loved ones there, listen, 
and you will hear voices calling you to glory. 



30 THE WORK THAT LASTS. 

SHje SMarft tfjat 3Laste, 

He who works on material things leaves results 
that will perish. The noblest buildings crumble. 
The finest pictures the artist puts on canvas fade 
out. Nothing done in matter is immortal, for 
matter is perishable. But he who works on the 
unseen, the spiritual, leaves impressions that shall 
endure forever. The touch of beauty you put 
upon a life yesterday by the earnest word you 
spoke, by the new impulse you started in the 
heart of your friend, by the vision of heavenly 
purity you gave in your own life to one who was 
with you, will be bright, when sun and stars 
shall have burned out to blackness. What we do 
on immortal lives is immortal work. Then of all 
work on human lives, the saving of souls is the 
most blessed. He who adds the least touch of 
beauty to a saved life does more than he who 
paints a masterpiece ; but he who brings a lost soul 
to the Saviour, who seeks and finds a wandering 
sheep and bears it back to the fold, does the 
noblest, greatest work possible on this earth. To 
work, therefore, for eternity, we must work on 
human lives, not merely on wood or stone. 



YOUR OWN CROSS THE BEST. 3 1 

gout ©ton Cross % JSesi 

There is a poem called " The Changed Cross." 
It represents a weary one who thought that her 
cross was surely heavier than those of others whom 
she saw about her, and wished that she might 
choose another instead of her own. She slept, 
and in her dream she was led to a place where 
many crosses lay, crosses of divers shapes and 
sizes. There was a little one most beauteous to 
behold, set in jewels and gold. " Ah, this I can 
wear with comfort," she said. So she took it 
up, but her weak form shook beneath it. The 
jewels and the gold were beautiful, but they were 
far too heavy for her. Next she saw a lovely cross 
with fair flowers entwined around its sculptured 
form. Surely that was the one for her. She 
lifted it, but beneath the flowers were piercing 
thorns which tore her flesh. At last, as she went 
on, she came to a plain cross, without jewels, 
without carving, with only a few words of love 
inscribed upon it. This she took up and it 
proved the best of all, the easiest to be borne. 
And as she looked upon it, bathed in the radi- 
ance that fell from heaven, she recognized her 
own old cross. She had found it again, and it 
was the best of all and lightest for her. 

God knows best what cross we need to bear. 



32 THE HUMAN TOUCH. 

We do not know how heavy other people's crosses 
are. We envy some one who is rich ; his is a 
golden cross set with jewels. But we do not 
know how heavy it is. Here is another whose 
life seems very lovely. She bears a cross twined 
with flowers. But we do not know what sharp 
thorns are hidden beneath the flowers. If we 
could try all the other crosses that we think lighter 
than ours, we should at last find that not one of 
them suited us so well as our own. 



21%e J^umatt Cmicrj. 

A visitor to a glass manufactory saw a man 
moulding clay into the great pots which were to 
be used in shaping the glass. Noticing that all 
the moulding was done by hand, he said to the 
workman, " Why do you not use a tool to aid you 
in shaping the clay?" The workman replied, 
" There is no tool that can do this work. We 
have tried different ones, but somehow it needs 
the human touch." 

There is much of the Lord's work that likewise 
needs the " human touch." The divine hand 
would have been too glorious, too dazzling, too 
bright, if it had been reached out of heaven to 
help, and lift up, and save, to wipe away tears, to 



SELF IN LOVE'S FIRE. 33 

heal heart-wounds, to be laid in benediction on 
the children's heads ; and therefore God took 
a human form, that with a human hand he might 
touch the sinful and the sorrowing. And now 
that Christ has gone away again into heaven he 
does not reach out of the skies that glorified hand, 
which burns with splendor, to do his work of love 
in this world, but uses our common hands, yours 
and mine, sending us to do in his name the gentle 
things he would have done for his little ones. 



Self in SLobe'g jJFtre. 

There is a story of Pousa, the Chinese potter, 
who received from the emperor a command to 
make a rare set of porcelain ware for the royal 
table. With greatest pains he began his work, 
desiring to make it the finest achievement of his 
life. Again and again, however, when the pieces 
were put into the furnace they were marred. At 
length another set was ready for the burning, 
and the potter hoped that this one would be 
successful. He had wrought it with the greatest 
care. But as he watched it in the furnace he saw 
that this too would be a failure. In his despair 
he threw himself into the fire, and his body was 
consumed. But when the pieces were taken out 



34 THE SOLDIER AT PRAYER. 

they were found to be so wondrously beautiful 
that nothing like them had ever before been seen. 
Not until the potter gave himself, sacrificing his 
own life in the doing of it, was his work success- 
ful. 

This old heathen legend has its lesson for 
Christian life. Our work never reaches the 
highest beauty, is never fit for our King, until 
love's self-sacrifice is brought into it. Things we 
do ourselves, to win honor for our own name, to 
make profit for our own enrichment, are never 
the things that are most beautiful. 



2Hje Saltan: at ^rager* 

General Gordon, whose name shines so brightly 
in the records of England's noble soldiers, was 
as loyal to Christ as he was to his country. 
Indeed, noble as he was as a soldier, he was 
nobler still as a Christian. Each morning, during 
his journey in the Soudan, there was one half- 
hour when there lay outside General Gordon's 
tent a handkerchief, and the whole camp knew 
the meaning of that small token, and most relig- 
iously was it respected by all, whatever their 
creed, color, or business. No foot dared to enter 
the tent while this handkerchief lay there. No 



LET HIM HAVE ALL. 35 

force of sentinels could better have guarded the 
tent door. No message, however pressing, was 
ever sent in ; whatever it was, of life or death, it 
had to wait until the guardian signal was lifted 
and removed. Every one knew that God and 
Gordon were alone there together ; that the 
servant prayed and communed, and that the 
Master heard and answered. Into the heart so 
opened, the presence and the life of God came 
down. Into the life so laid upon the altar, the 
strength of God was poured. No wonder that 
when that man came out of his tent the glory of 
God seemed to shine on his face and the fra- 
grance of heaven to cling to his very garments, 
and that he had such sublime peace and such 
calm, majestic power. 

We all need to get more of such half-hours 
into our lives, when God's very angels will pause 
in reverent silence at our doors, while within we 
commune with the blessed Trinity. Then we 
shall be strong for service, and our influence shall 
be hallowed by the very touch of Christ. 



5Lct $tm $nbe BII. 

Suppose a mother gave her child a beautiful 
flower-plant in bloom, and told her to carry it 



36 HE THAT IS FAITHFUL. 

to a sick friend. The child takes it away, and 
when she reaches the friend's door she plucks off 
one leaf and gives it to her, keeping the plant 
herself. Has she obeyed her mother's com- 
mand? Then afterwards, once a day, she plucks 
off another leaf, or a bud, or a flower, and takes 
it to the friend, still retaining the plant. Did she 
obey the command of her mother? Nothing but 
the giving of the whole plant could fulfil the 
mother's direction. 

Now is that not a simple illustration of what 
we give to Christ? He commands us to love him 
with all our heart and with all our being, and we 
pluck off a little leaf of love now and then, a 
little bud or flower of affection, or one cluster of 
fruit from the bending branches, and give to him, 
and we call that obeying. 



%z atijat is JatUjfttL 

Real worth always finds its true place at length. 
There are some people who think they never get 
into the place they are fitted to fill ; but usually 
something in the men themselves is the secret of 
their failure. It is not some happy chance that 
lifts men to places of honor and responsibility, 
nor is it piety alone. Brains are necessary for 



HEAVEN HELPING THE WEARY. 37 

great duties as well as honesty and prayerfulness. 
God does not put a man into a high position 
merely because he is a good man. The man 
must have abilities ; and if he has and is a true 
man the world will want him sometime. Let 
young men make themselves ready for positions 
of trust, and they will be called to the positions 
at the right time. God's clock is never too slow. 



There is a pleasant legend of Michael Angelo. 
He was engaged on a painting, but grew weary 
and discouraged while his work was yet incom- 
plete, and fell asleep. Then while he slept an 
angel came, and seizing the brush that had 
dropped from the tired artist's fingers, finished 
the picture. Angelo awoke at length, affrighted 
that he had slept, and foregone his task in self- 
indulgence, but, looking at his canvas, his heart 
was thrilled with joy, and his soul uplifted beyond 
measure, for he saw that while he had slept his 
picture had been finished, and that it had been 

" painted fairer 
Far than any picture of his making 
In the past, with tint and touch diviner, 
And a light of God above it breaking." 



38 THE FRAGRANCE OF A GENTLE LIFE. 

So it is with all who truly long and strive after 
the heavenly likeness. Faint and discouraged, 
they think they are making no progress, no 
growth toward the divine image, but in the very 
time of their faintness and disheartenment, " when 
human hands are weary folded," God's Spirit 
comes and silently fashions the beauty in their 
souls. When they awake they shall see the work 
finished, and shall be satisfied in Christ's likeness. 
There is great comfort in this for many of the 
Father's weary children who earnestly long to 
become like the Master. 



9Cfjc jjtmgrance of a ©rntle 3Ltfc. 

Once in crossing a meadow I came to a spot 
that was filled with fragrance. Yet I could see 
no flowers, and I wondered whence the fragrance 
came. At last I found, low down, close to the 
ground, hidden by the tall grass, innumerable 
little- flowers. It was from these that the fra- 
grance came. 

I enter some homes. There is a rich perfume of 
love that pervades all the place. It may be a 
home of wealth and luxury, or it may be plain 
and bare. No matter ; it is not the house, nor 
the furniture, nor the adornment that makes this 



THE FRAGRANCE OF A GENTLE LIFE. 39 

air of sweetness. I look closely. It is a gentle 
woman, mother or daughter, quiet, hiding self 
away, from whose life the fragrance flows. There 
is a wondrous charm in a gentle spirit. The 
gentle girl in a home may not be beautiful, may 
not be well-educated, may not be musical or an 
artist or " clever " in any way ; but wherever she 
moves, she leaves a benediction. Her sweet pa- 
tience is never disturbed by the sharp words that 
fall about her. The children love her because 
she never tires of them. She helps them with 
their lessons, listens to their frets and worries, 
mends their broken toys, makes dolls' dresses, 
straightens out the tangles and settles their little 
quarrels, and finds time to play with them. When 
there is sickness in the home, she is the angel of 
comfort. Her face is always bright with the 
outshining of love. Her voice has music in it 
as it falls in cheerful tenderness on the sufferer's 
ear. Her hands are wondrously gentle as their 
soothing touch rests on the aching head, or as 
they minister in countless ways about the bed of 
pain. 

"The lives that make the world so sweet 
Are shy, and hide like the humble flowers. 
We pass them by with our eareless feet, 
Nor dream 'tis their fragrance fills the bower, 
And cheers and comforts us ? hour by hour. , ' 



4° MISINTERPRE TA TION. 

ilMfeinterprrtation, 

One Christmas some one sent Mr. Whittier a 
gentian flower pressed between two panes of 
glass. Seen from one side it appeared only a 
blurred mass of something without beauty. But 
seen from the other side the exquisite beauty of 
the flower appeared, in all its delicate loveliness. 
Whether the gift was lovely or not to the view 
depended on the side from which one looked 
at it. The poet hung the gift on the window 
pane, putting the blurred side out and the lovely 
flower side toward his room. Those who passed 
by, without, looking up, marked only a " gray 
disk of clouded glass," seeing no beauty, but 
the poet, sitting within, looked at the token, and 
saw outlined against the winter sky all the exqui- 
site loveliness of the flower. 

" They cannot from their outlook see 
The perfect grace it hath for me; 
For there the flower, whose fringes through 
The frosty breath of autumn blew, 
Turns from without its face of bloom 
To the warm tropic of my room, 
As fair as when beside its brook 
The hue of bending skies it took. 

" But deeper meanings come to me, 
My half-immortal flower, from thee : 



FOR THE MASTER'S EYE. 41 

Man judges from a partial view, 
None ever yet his brother knew; 
The Eternal Eye that sees the whole 
May better read the darkened soul, 
And find, to outward sense denied, 
The flower upon its inmost side." 

Too often we look upon the blurred side of 
actions — yes, of people too. We do not see 
the loveliness that there is on the other side. 
We are all continually misinterpreting others. 
There is a flower side in many an act which we 
condemn because we see only the blurred side. 
Let us train ourselves to believe the best always 
of people and of actions, and find some beauty 
in everything. 



Jot tfje JHaster'g IEjje, 

There is an old story of a Grecian sculptor, 
who, charged with adorning a lofty temple, was 
chided by his employers because he fashioned the 
upper surface of the capitals which surrounded 
his pillars with the same exquisite workman- 
ship and elaborate care which he bestowed on 
the carving within reach of every visitor who 
might stand on the pavement. They said to 
him, " Why do you waste your skill where no 
human eye can ever behold it? Only the birds 



42 FRIENDSHIP'S PERFECT TRUST. 

of the air can rest in such a place." The sculp- 
tor raised his eyes, lifted for a moment his 
chisel from the stone, and replied, " The gods 
will see it," and resumed his task. 

We should learn a lesson from the old heathen 
artist. We should do our work just as honestly 
where it will be covered up and never seen by 
human eyes, as where it is to be open to the 
scrutiny of the world, for God will see it. We 
should live just as purely and beautifully in 
secret as in the glare of the world's noon. There 
really is no such thing as secrecy in this world. 
We fancy that no eye is looking when we are not 
in the presence of men ; but really we always 
have spectators, — we are living all our life in the 
presence of angels and of God himself. We 
should train ourselves, therefore, to work for the 
divine eye in all that we do, that our work may 
stand the divine inspection, and that we may 
have the approval and commendation of God. 



Jrtrntisrjirj's perfect 2Trust, 

It is often given as a wonderful proof of confi- 
dence in a friend, that once when the great Grecian 
emperor, Alexander, was ill, it was told to him in 
a letter that his physician intended to give him 



STORED JOY GLADDING SORROW. 43 

poison, under the form of medicine. The emperor 
put the note under his pillow. The physician 
came, poured out the potion, and gave it to him. 
He looked his friend full in the face, drank the 
contents of the goblet, then handed him the letter. 
It was a beautiful trust. 

Like confidence are we to have in the will of 
Christ. We are never to doubt his love nor his 
wisdom. Whatever he gives we are to accept 
with childlike trust, though it be something that 
we think may even slay us. There is no other 
full proof of unquestioning friendship. 



Storeii 3tog ©lalfomg Sorrofo, 

Did you ever sit on a winter's evening before 
an old-fashioned open fireplace, with its andirons, 
and its blazing log of wood ? As you sit there 
and watch the fire playing about the log, you 
begin to hear a soft sound, a clear musical note, 
perhaps, or a tender, quavering strain, plaintive and 
sad. It takes every tone as it sings on. Some- 
times it is like a whole chorus of bird-songs ; then 
again it dies away into a faint murmur. What is 
it? Are there birds hidden in the chimney, that 
give out these strange notes ? Are there invisible 
spirits hovering about the room, that breathe out 



44 STORED JOY GLADDING SORROW. 

these plaintive strains? No; the music comes 
from the log in the fire. The flames bring it out. 
A poet would say that long ago in the forest the 
birds sat on the branches of the tree from which 
this back log was taken, and sang there, and the 
songs hid away in the wood, where they have 
remained ever since. Or, he would say that the 
winds sighed and murmured through the branches 
in gentle summer breezes, or swept through them 
in furious storms, and that the music of the breezes 
and storms has been imprisoned in the heart of 
the tree all these many years. And now the heat 
brings out this long-slumbering music. 

These are only poetic fancies, so far as the 
weird music of the log on the hearth is concerned ; 
but it is no mere fancy that the sweetest, fullest 
music of the hour is not drawn out until in the 
heat of trial. The bird notes of joy that warble 
about our ears in the sunny days of childhood and 
youth, sink into the heart and hide there. The 
lessons, the influences, the gladness, the peace of 
quiet, prosperous days seem to have been lost. 
The life does not appear to yield its true measure 
of joyfulness. Then the fires of trial come and 
kindle about it, and in the flames the long-gath- 
ered and imprisoned music is set free and flows 
out. Many a rejoicing Christian never learned to 
sing till the flames kindled upon him. 



FOR THE LORD'S TREASURY. 45 

More than seventy years ago the king of 
Prussia, Frederick William III., found himself in 
great trouble. He was carrying on expensive 
wars, he was trying to strengthen his country and 
make a great nation of the Prussian people, and 
he had not money enough to accomplish his 
plans. What should he do? If he stopped 
where he was the country would be overrun by 
the enemy, and that would mean terrible distress 
for everybody. He therefore asked the women 
of Prussia, as many of them as wanted to help 
their king, to bring their jewelry of gold and sil- 
ver, to be melted down into money for the use of 
their country. Many women brought all the 
jewelry they had, and for each ornament of gold 
or silver, they received in exchange an ornament 
of bronze or iron, precisely like the gold or silver 
ones, as a token of the king's gratitude. These 
iron and bronze ornaments all bore the inscrip- 
tion : " I gave gold for iron, 1813." These orna- 
ments became more highly prized than the gold 
or silver ones had been, for they were a proof 
that the women had given up something for their 
king. It became very unfashionable to wear any 
jewelry. So the Order of the Iron Cross grew 
up, whose members wear no ornament except a 



46 "IN WHATSO WE SHARE." 

cross of iron on the breast, and give all their 
superfluous money to the service of their fellow- 
men. 

Is there not a suggestion here for many of us ? 
If all the girls and women who love and own the 
Lord Jesus as their King, and want to help him in 
the war against sin and ignorance and suffering 
which he is carrying on — if all these Christian 
girls and women were to give up their jewelry for 
his cause, how full the Lord's treasury would be ! 



"In EMrjatso mz Srjare/' 

We are all familiar with the story of the Holy 
Grail, which so many poets have wrought into 
verse. The Holy Grail was the cup from which 
Jesus drank with his disciples at the last supper. 
According to the legend this cup was lost, and it 
was a favorite enterprise of the knights of Arthur's 
court to go in quest of it. One of the prettiest 
of these stories tells of Sir Launfal's search for the 
Holy Grail. Far away over cold mountains and 
through fierce storms and over deserts, rode the 
brave young knight, till youth turned to age and 
his hair was gray. At last, after a vain search, he 
turned homeward, an old man, bent, worn out 
and frail, with garments thin and bare. As he 



«/y WHAT SO WE SHARED 47 

drew on there lay a leper, lank and wan, cowering 
before him. "For Christ's sweet sake I beg an 
alms," the leper said. Sir Launfal saw in the 
beggar an image of him who died on the tree. 

" He parted in twain his single crust, 
He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink. 
And gave the leper to eat and drink." 

Suddenly a light shone about the place : 

" The leper no longer crouched at his side, 

But stood before him glorified, 

Shining, and tall, and fair, and straight 

As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate." 

Sweetly now he spoke as the knight listened : 

" In many climes, without avail, 

Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail; 

Behold, it is here — this cup which thou 

Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now; 

This crust is my body broken for thee; 

This water his blood that died on the tree; 

The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, 

In whatso we share with another's need; 

Not what we give, but what we share, 

For the gift without the giver is bare ; 

Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, — 

Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me." 

The path of glory for a life lies not away among 
the cold mountains of earthly honor, not in any 



43 THE CALMNESS OF PEACE. 

paths of fame where worldly ambition climbs, but 
close beside us, in the lowly ways of Christ-like 
ministry. He who stoops to serve the poor and 
the suffering, in Christ's name, will find at length 
that he has served Christ himself. " I was a 
hungered, and ye gave me meat ; I was thirsty, 
and ye gave me drink." 



&fje Calmness oi Peace* 

The people in all lines of duty who do the 
most work are the calmest, most unhurried people 
in the community. Duties never wildly chase 
each other in their lives. One task never crowds 
another out, nor ever compels hurried, and there- 
fore imperfect, doing. The calm spirit works 
methodically, doing one thing at a time, and doing 
it well, and it therefore works swiftly, though 
never appearing to be in haste. 

We need the peace of God in our heart just 
as really for the doing well of the little things of 
our secular life as for the doing of the greatest 
duties of Christ's kingdom. Our face ought to 
shine, and our spirit ought to be tranquil, and our 
eye ought to be clear, and our nerves ought to be 
steady, as we press through the tasks of our com- 
monest day. Then we shall do them all well, 



HELPING WHILE WE MAY. 49 

slurring nothing, marring nothing. We want 
heart-peace before we begin any day's duties, and 
we should wait at Christ's feet ere we go forth. 



piping HSHjiU Wit flftag, 

A captain of an ocean vessel, one day as his 
ship was speeding through the waters, saw a 
signal of distress some distance off. A glass was 
turned to the spot, and it was seen that there 
was only one man on a piece of wreck. To 
go to his rescue, the ship would have to be 
stopped and turned back in her course, losing 
much time. 

" No," said the captain; "some other vessel 
will pick him up. " He speeded on and was 
in port in good time, and was commended for his 
swift passage. But he could not get 'out of his 
mind the memory of that signal of distress out 
there on the wild seas, and the sight through the 
glass of that one man on the piece of wreck left 
there to perish. By day and night that picture 
haunted him. 

As we are hurrying on these busy days, do we 
see no signals of distress on life's broad sea? 
Do we hear no cries, no bitter wails from souls 
that are out on the angry waves ? Do we heed 



SO EARTH'S BROKEN MUSIC. 

the signals and hearken to the cries? Do we 
turn away from our business, our pleasure, our 
ease, our money getting, our petty ambitions, 
to carry rescue to those souls that are perishing, 
or that are in sorrow? Or do we hurry on and 
say we have no time for these things, no time to 
save our brothers, no time to lift up fallen ones, 
no time to wipe away a tear? If we do not 
turn aside to help or save, may not our deepest 
sorrow in eternity be the memory of cries of dis- 
tress unheeded ? May not the visions of the per- 
ishing ones who called to us for help and got 
no answer, whom we have left unhelped out on 
the wild waves, haunt us forever? 



(Partly s Broken fHustc. 

During the battle of Gettysburg, while a thou- 
sand cannon shook the hills and the air quivered 
with the rapid concussions, there came a lull for 
a moment. Not a gun was heard far or near. 
In that pause a soldier heard a little bird singing 
sweetly in a tree that grew close by. When the 
crash began again the bird was silent. It sang 
only in the momentary pauses of conflict. 

So it is with this world's joy. Now and then 
there is a note of peace heard, as if an angel 



HOW WE MAKE CROSSES. 51 

were singing in the man's life ; in the brief pauses 
of discontent and care and struggle it is heard. 
But soon the strife begins again, and the bird-note 
of peace is hushed. When the waves of sorrow 
break its voice is drowned. But one who re- 
joices in God has a joy that sings on through all 
the roar of this world's battle, through all the 
darkness of the night. 



P?0fo Wlz Plafce Crosse*. 
You remember the way a father pictured a 
cross to his child. A cross is composed of two 
pieces of wood. The shorter piece represents 
your will, and the longer, God's will. Lay the 
two pieces side by side, and there is no cross ; 
but lay the shorter piece across the longer, and 
you have a cross. Whenever our will falls across 
God's there is a cross in our life. W r e make a 
cross for ourselves every time we do not accept 
Christ's way, every time we murmur at anything 
he sends, every time we will not do what he 
commands. But when we quietly accept what he 
gives, when we yield in sweet acquiescence to his 
will though it shatters our fairest hopes, when we 
let our will lie alongside his, there are no crosses 
in our life, and we have found the peace of Christ. 



52 A VISION OF FAITHFULNESS. 

% Ufeton jrf Jattjjfttlntss, 

A young soldier, scarce a month from his peace- 
ful home, standing now in the excitement of the 
field, asked in a tense whisper, with white, quiver- 
ing lip, " Do you think there will be a battle?" 
Almost as he spoke there leaped from a wooded 
crest near by flashing tongues of flame that 
brought death to hundreds. Later, in- a terrible 
struggle, this brave boy was still at his post. The 
weakened line was wavering, however, and the 
lad's brother, an old veteran, saw it, and rushed 
for an instant from his post of duty, and sought 
along the trembling line for the boy he loved as 
his own soul. As his eye fell upon him, faithful 
still, he laid his hand upon the lad's shoulder, and 
said: "Be a man, John." The tide of battle 
ebbed and flowed, and when the moon rose after 
that tumultuous day, its pale beams shone on 
John's face, white and cold, lying where he had 
stood, his feet the very foremost in the pallid 
ranks toward the foe. 

We are all in a battle that will not end for us 
until in our turn the moon's beams shine down 
upon each one of our faces, when we sleep on the 
field. We must be faithful. Then at the end we 
must stand before our king, and make report to 
him of what we have done, Will he then say to 



FROM TORCH TO TORCH. 53 

us, "Thou hast been faithful?" I would rather 
have that at the close of my life — " Thou hast 
been faithful " — than wear earth's brightest crown 
and be unfaithful. 

jFrom SEorcfj to SDorrij, 

I have 'heard of the lighting of the torches in 
the holy sepulchre at Easter time. The building 
is very dark in the early morning. The patriarch 
comes. Through the darkness he passes within a 
curtain, and is in the place where they say the 
body of Jesus . lay. Not a word, not a sound 
breaks the silence in the great building. At last 
there is a movement — the patriarch comes out 
bearing one burning torch. Instantly a dark 
torch touches this lighted one and blazes out, 
and then another and another, and soon a thou- 
sand torches are blazing, all lighted from the 
one torch that came out from the empty tomb of 
Christ. Out into the streets of the city they are 
borne, and along the highways everywhere other 
torches are lighted from these, until the whole 
land glows with fire that came from Christ's grave. 

What an illustration this is of the spreading 
forth of that fire of Pentecost ! From the cross 
of Christ and from his emptied grave comes the 



54 WEIGHTS AND WINGS. 

fire of the Holy Ghost. Your life and mine are 
like candles unlighted, or, at the best, burning 
very dimly. But if we will hold them up to this 
one flame that blazes before us, they will be 
lighted too ; we shall become burning lights. Then 
as we go out into the world, other lives will touch 
ours, and they will burn too, and light others, 
also, until thousands of burning hearts shall glow 
in earth's darkness. 



racists an* SHings, 

There is a myth or fable about the way the 
birds got their wings at the beginning. They 
were made first without wings. Then God made 
the wings and put them down before the wingless 
birds, and said to them, " Come, take up these 
burdens and bear them." The birds had lovely 
plumage and sweet voices ; they could sing, and 
their feathers gleamed in the sunshine, but they 
could not soar into the air. They hesitated at 
first when bidden to take up the burdens that lay 
at their feet, but soon they obeyed, and taking up 
the wings in their beaks, laid them on their 
shoulders to carry them. For a little while the 
load seemed heavy and hard to bear. But pres- 
ently, as they went on carrying the burdens, fold- 



FOR THE LOVE THAT IS IN IT. 55 

ing them over their hearts, the wings grew fast 
to their little bodies, and soon they discovered 
how to use them, and were lifted by them up into 
the air. The weights became wings. 

It is a parable. We are the wingless birds, and 
our duties and tasks are the pinions God has 
made to lift us up and carry us heavenward. We 
look at our burdens and heavy loads and shrink 
from them. But as we lift them and bind them 
about our hearts they become wings, and on them 
we rise and soar toward God. There is no bur- 
den, which if we lift it cheerfully, and bear it with 
love in our heart, will not become a blessing to 
us. God means our tasks to be our helpers 
heavenward. To shrink from a duty, or to refuse 
to bend our shoulders to receive a load is to 
decline a new opportunity for growth. 



* 



JJFor trjc 3Lobe tfjat is in It 

A poor Arab, travelling in the desert, came to 
a spring of pure water, and filled his leather cup 
to carry it to the caliph. A long way he had 
to go before he could present it to his sovereign. 
The caliph received the gift with pleasure, and 
pouring some of the water into a cup drank it, 



56 PREACHING AS WE WALK. 

thanking the Arab and rewarding him. The court- 
iers around pressed forward, eager to taste of the 
wonderful water, but the caliph strangely forbade 
them to touch a single drop. When the poor 
Arab had departed with a joyful heart, the 
caliph told his courtiers why he had forbidden 
them to taste the water. In the long journey it 
had become impure and distasteful in the leath- 
ern bottle. But it was an offering of love, and 
as such the caliph had received it with pleasure. 
Bat he knew that if any other should taste the 
water he would have shown his disgust, and 
thus the poor man's feelings would have been 
wounded. 

Does not this beautifully illustrate the spirit 
with which Christ receives the gifts and services 
of those who love him? The gifts may be worth- 
less, and the services may avail nothing ; but for 
the love that prompts them, he accepts them 
with real gladness, and richly rewards them. 



Preaching as Wit SMalft. 

We must preach as we walk. Many of the best 
sermons are sermons without words. Francis of 
Assisi one day stepped down into the cloisters 



PREACHING AS WE WALK, 57 

of his monastery, and said to a young monk : 
" Brother, let us go down into the town to-day 
and preach." So they went forth, the venerable 
father and the young man, conversing as they 
went. Along the principal streets, around the 
lowly alleys, to the outskirts of the town, and to 
the village beyond, they wound their way, return- 
ing at length to the monastery gate. Then spoke 
the young monk, " Father, when shall we begin 
to preach? " " My child ! " said Francis, looking 
down kindly upon the young man, " we have 
been preaching ; we were preaching while we 
were walking. We have been seen — looked at ; 
our behavior has been remarked; and so we have 
delivered a morning sermon. Ah ! my son," 
continued the saintly man, " it is of no use that 
we walk anywhere to preach, unless we preach 
as we walk." 

In this way we may all be preachers ; in this 
way we all must preach, if we would win souls. 
We must preach as we walk. St. Paul said : " For 
me to live is Christ." Wherever he went, men saw 
Christ mirrored in his character, his disposition, 
his conduct, his temper. We must be Christ to 
those we would win for Christ. 



58 THAT A CHILD MAY SEE. 

ftfjat a Cfjito Plan &zz. 

We should live so that those who know us 
shall recognize in us the unmistakable lineaments 
of Christ. Retzsch, a German sculptor, made a 
wonderful statue of the Redeemer. For eight 
years it was his dream by night and his thought 
by day. He first made a clay model, and set it 
before a child five or six years old. There were 
about the figure none of the usual emblematical 
marks designating the Saviour — no cross, no 
crown of thorns, nothing by which to identify it. 
Yet when the child saw it, and was asked who 
it was, he said, " Suffer little children and forbid 
them not to come unto me." 

This was a wonderful triumph of art, this 
putting so much divinity into the face of the 
model that even a little child recognized the 
artist's thought. We should exhibit in our life 
and character such a reproduction of the holi- 
ness and beauty of Christ that every one who 
looks upon us and sees our life may instinctively 
recognize the features of the Master, and say, 
" Behold the image of the Redeemer ! " There is 
no other way of magnifying the Lord that so 
impresses the world. 



* 



WHAT GRACE CAN DO. 59 

SMrjat (grace Can IBo. 

God can take the most soiled soul and give to it 
radiant beauty. A piece of black carbon set in 
the electric current blazes with dazzling light. 
Queen Victoria stopped one day at a paper-mill 
near Windsor Castle, and was shown through it 
by the foreman; he did not know who she 
was, as she was alone, save one attendant, and 
was plainly dressed. The queen was intensely 
interested in every process of the paper-maker's 
art. She was conducted at last to a place where 
a number of rag-pickers were emptying out the 
dirty rags which they had gathered from the 
gutters and alleys of the great city. There was 
a large pile of these filthy, blackened rags, which 
looked as if they never could be made clean. 
The queen asked the foreman what he could do 
with these. To her amazement he told her that he 
would make them into the finest, whitest paper. 
When the queen had gone, the foreman learned 
who she was. Some days after there was re- 
ceived at the palace a package of the purest, 
most delicate paper, having the queen's likeness 
stamped upon it, with a note from the foreman 
of the mill telling her that this paper was made 
from the very rags she had seen on the occasion 
of her visit. 



60 THE REVEALING OF EXPERIENCE. 

So it is that the Holy Ghost takes human lives, 
ruined and blackened by sin. makes them whiter 
than snow, and stamps upon them the seal of God, 
the divine likeness. No life is hopeless in its 
ruin that will submit itself to the renewing, trans- 
forming grace of Christ. 



2Tf)e Bcbealmg at ^Experience, 

If you are outside a beautiful church building, 
with its fine stained-glass windows, the figures on 
the windows look dim, dull, and obscure, mere 
blotches of vague colors. You cannot see the 
artistic designs, the noble representations, the 
delicate shading. But if you go inside the build- 
ing, the windows reveal themselves to you in all 
their exquisite loveliness. There is no more hazi- 
ness about them. The figures appear in clear 
outline, in all their artistic beauty. The scenes, 
for example, in our Lord's life, are pictured so 
distinctly that they seem almost like life. From 
without all is vague and dim and shadowy ; from 
within all is clear, plain, shining in rich beauty. 

This illustrates the story of many people's ex- 
perience of Christian truth. When they think of 
it from without, having yet no experience of it, it 
seems misty and vague. They cannot understand 



EASY TO HURT OTHERS. 6 1 

it. They cannot see any beauty in it. Then 
they pass within the sacred temple. They become 
followers of Christ, children of God. They yield 
their hearts to the Holy Spirit and begin to do 
the will of their Father. Then all the vagueness 
passes away from the teachings. They have 
willed to do the will of God, and they know of 
the doctrine. 



3Easg to Pjutt ©tfjerg;. 

We are so related to each other that we are 
continually leaving impressions on those we touch. 
It is easier to do harm than good to other lives. 
There is a quality in the human soul which makes 
it take more readily and retain more permanently 
touches of sin than touches of holiness. Among 
the ruins of some old temple there was found a 
slab which bore very faintly and dimly the image 
of the king, and in deep and clear indentations 
the print of a dog's foot. The king's beauty was 
less clear than the marks of the animal's tread. 
So human lives are apt to take less readily and 
deeply, to retain less indelibly the touches of 
spiritual beauty, and more clearly and permanently 
the marks and impressions of evil. It needs, 
therefore, in us, infinite carefulness and watchful- 



62 LIFE'S SOREST LOSS. 

ness, as we walk ever amid other lives, lest by 
some word or look or act or influence of ours 
we hurt them irreparably. 



ILhVs Sorest iloss. 

A story is told, in a little poem by Francis 
Browne, of a pilgrim band, sitting by the shore of 
the sea and recounting their losses, while the 
evening waned away from cliff and bay, and the 
strong tides went out with weary moan. One 
spoke with quivering lips of a ship that went 
down into the deep, with all his household, another 
of a still wilder woe for a fair young face lost long 
before in the darker depths of a great town. 
Some mourned the sweet memories of a lost 
youth. One looked away to the west, with eyes 
that would not rest, for far-off hills, where all his 
joys had been. Some talked of vanished gold, 
some told of proud honors gone, some of friends 
proved faithless, and one of a green grave beside 
a foreign wave, that made him sit lonely on the 
shore. 

" But when their tales were done, 
There spake among them one, 



THE COST OF LIFE'S BEST. 63 

A stranger seeming from all sorrow free : 

' Sad losses have ye met, 

But mine is heavier yet, 
For a believing heart hath gone from me.' 

" ' Alas ! ' these pilgrims said, 
4 For the living and the dead, 
For fortune's cruelty, for love's sore cross, 
' For the wrecks of land and sea; 
But, howe'er it came to thee, 
Thine, stranger, is life's last and heaviest loss.' " 

We stand in tearful pity beside those who have 
lost money or friends, or have suffered from life's 
other adversities ; but there are none whom we 
should pity like those who have put away from 
them the precious faith of their early years ; who 
believe no more in a personal, loving God. The 
loss of a believing heart is life's sorest loss. 



Wt}t (Cost of 3Ltfe'* JSest 

There must be the death of self always before 
a life can be Christlike. In Japan they have a 
beautiful legend of the making of a wonderful 
bell. Long, long ago, the emperor wrote to the 
maker of bells, commanding him to cast a bell 
larger and more beautiful than any ever made 



64 THE COST OF LIFE'S BEST. 

before. He bade him put in it gold and silver 
and brass, that the tones might be so sweet and 
clear, that when hung in the palace tower, its 
sounds might be heard for a hundred miles. The 
maker of bells put gold and silver and brass in his 
great melting pot, but the metals would not min- 
gle and the bell was a failure. Again and again 
he tried, but in vain. Then the emperor was 
angry and sent, saying that if the bell was not 
made at the next trial the bell- maker must die. 

The bell-maker had a lovely daughter. She 
was greatly distressed for her father. Wrapping 
her mantle about her she went by night to the 
oracle and asked how she could save him. He 
told her that gold and brass would not mingle 
until the blood of a virgin was mixed with them 
in their fusion. Again the old maker of bells pre- 
pared to cast the bell. The daughter stood by 
and at the moment of casting she threw herself 
into the midst of the molten metal. The bell was 
made and was found to be more wonderful and 
perfect than any other ever made. It hangs in 
the great palace tower, and its sweet tones are 
heard for a hundred miles. The blood of sacri- 
fice, mingling with the gold and silver, gave to the 
bell its matchless sweetness. 

It is only a legend from a heathen land, but its 
lesson is true. Our lives make no music until self 



OUT OF THE SPOILED STONE. 65 

dies, and our blood mingles with our offering in the 
altar fires of love. It is only when we lose our 
life for Christ that we get it back, saved and 
glorious. 

©ut of tfje Spoiled Stone. 

Michael Angelo was one day passing along 
one of the streets of Florence, when he saw a 
piece of marble which had been wrought upon by 
some unskilful workman, hacked and cut and 
spoiled, and then abandoned, — thrown away as 
worthless. The stone lay now among the waste 
and rubbish. It was of finest Carrara marble. 
No doubt many an artist had looked at it, struck 
by the fineness of its quality, but it was ruined and 
nothing could now be made of it. So it lay there, 
rejected, spoiled, useless, until Michael Angelo 
saw it. At once his eye perceived the possible 
beauty in it. Now, if you visit Florence, one of 
the noblest works of art you will see there will be 
Angelo's magnificent representation of the young 
David. Life is in every feature. The statue is 
one of the most wonderful works of art in all 
Italy. When first unveiled it caused an almost 
unparalleled sensation. Yet that wondrous statue, 
so like life, so fine a piece of art, was cut from 



66 THE BLESSING OF A SUNBEAM. 

that spoiled, rejected, abandoned, blackened 
stone. 

Is not this story an illustration of what happens 
in many human lives? They contain noble mate- 
rial for manhood, but they have been spoiled, 
marred, and are thrown aside. No one thinks of 
anything good ever coming out of them. Then 
Jesus passes by and his eye sees the possibilities 
of beauty, the elements of noble life and manhood 
in them, and he takes the soiled lives out of the 
dust and lifts them up until they shine in radiant 
splendor, fashioned into the beauty of his own 
ima^e. 



3Hje Blessing oi a Sunbeam. 

Deep in a dungeon an ivy grew. No rain fell 
upon it and no dew moistened it. Its pale leaves 
drank in only the foul dampness of the cell. But 
as the summer advanced, a sunbeam fell through 
the grating, streamed down into the dungeon, 
pouring its light and warmth for an hour every 
day upon the pallid plant. Life began to stir in 
the ivy's roots. It lifted its head and grew up 
toward the sunbeam. It climbed slowly up the 
wall, and at last pushed itself through the bars 
where it could have the sunshine all day upon it 



LEGEND OF THE HANDKERCHIEF. 67 

with all its brightness and warmth. It grew and 
grew, until it covered all the outer wall and was 
the admiration of all who passed by. 

So it is when the light of divine love falls upon 
a perishing soul, even in the darkest dungeon of 
sinful degradation. It feels instantly a thrill of 
life. It begins to grow, and as it drinks in the 
blessed sunshine it rises out of its old state of 
death. At last it is a branch of glorious beauty, 
covered with fruits of holiness. Human philoso- 
phy may be very wise, but it cannot cause one 
stir or flutter of life in a dead soul. Science is 
doing marvels these days. It throws bridges over 
wide rivers ; it tunnels under great mountains ; it 
cuts canals between seas ; it binds the earth into 
one close clasp by its telegraph wires and cables ; 
it weighs the stars ; it does wonders. But science, 
with all its skill, has never yet been able to put 
life into any dead thing. Much less can science 
give spiritual life to a dead soul. Christ alone 
can do this, and whosoever believeth on him hath 
everlasting life. 

(JHje iLegenti of tf)c ^anrjfecrcrjfcf. 

The old legend says that when Jesus passed on 
his way to Golgotha a pious woman took off her 



68 THE TRUE PROBLEM. 

handkerchief and gave it to him, that with it he 
might wipe the blood and sweat from his face. 
When he gave back the cloth to her his features 
had been impressed upon it, a perfect portrait. 
The handkerchief has been lost, and artists 
attempt now to paint our Lord's picture from 
their own imagination. 

But really Christ's picture never has been lost. 
It never was impressed on the napkin — that is 
but a legend. It is impressed, however, on the 
life of every one of his true followers, where he 
appears in every deed of beauty and virtue and in 
every forgetting of self. You go to the artists for 
the likeness of Christ ; go rather to lowly Chris- 
tian lives, which in love, gentleness, unselfishness, 
and kindly ministry reflect his beauty. 



SHje &utc problem. 

A ship is made to go in the water, and no 
matter how deep the sea, nor how wild the tem- 
pest, all goes well so long as the water does not 
get into the ship. The problem of managing a 
ship is, not to keep the ship out of the water, but 
to keep the water out of the ship. The problem 
of true Christian living is, not to keep ourselves 



THE BUILDING OF THE MINSTER. 69 

out of cares and trials and temptations, but to 
keep the cares and temptations from getting into 
our souls. Some people let all their frets at once 
into their hearts, and they soon work out in their 
lives in sourness, irritability, discontent. They 
become thus miserable themselves, and they make 
all about them miserable. They cast, not cooling, 
healthful, refreshing shade on others, but sombre, 
darkening; chilling shadows. Learn to keep your 
cares in your hands and out of your hearts. 
Nothing in this world is more beautiful than a 
Christian life, with many trials and cares, yet re- 
maining ever peaceful and joyous amid them all. 
This is the real problem of the noblest Christian 
living. 

3Efje Bmlturuj of tfje iiHmstcr, 

In an old city, long ago, some zealous men de- 
termined to build a minster for their Master. The 
building was to be reared with great magnificence, 
and they brought costly wood and marble from 
distant lands, and employed the best artists to 
make the elegant figures for them. When all was 
ready, they met together to plan where they should 
build it. 

"We will not have it here," they said, "in 



70 THE BUILDING OF THE MINSTER. 

these narrow streets, where the smoke and dust 
of traffic would defile the pure whiteness of the 
marble." 

" No," said another, " we will put it on yonder 
green hill whose summit can be seen from all the 
surrounding country. There we will build our 
minster ; the world about us shall see it and 
know what we have done." 

So they chose the summit of the hill, and there 
with willing hands they labored all the summer 
long. The grain was just planted when they be- 
gan, and it was waving like gold when they came 
together once more to talk about it. They had 
labored for months ; yet the towers of that minster 
never rose, and its walls never grew. The people 
said that what the men did in the daytime a band 
of angels undid at night. 

" It is the hand of God," an aged man said to 
them ; " he will not have the minster builded 
there for the whole world to see. You should 
have wrought for his glory, not for your own." 

Meekly the builders bowed their heads. They 
saw the hand of God in the failure of their work, 
and looking deep into their own hearts they saw 
there what they could not see before — that they 
had been working for their own glory, not for 
God's. So they took up their work again. This 
time they chose a site in the midst of the city's 



ON THE WINGS OF HIS SONG. 71 

traffic, where the poor, the lame, the old, the 
women and children, could go, fair days or foul, 
to worship. As they labored, a strange Workman 
came and helped them. He was clad in pure 
white garments whose brightness dazzled their 
eyes. Like magic the walls arose, till they grew 
to be a wondrous pile. As the men wrought 
day by day, no one heard the sound of strife, 
for they knew that their strange Fellow-work- 
man was Jesus Christ, the Lord. 

This old legend contains a lesson for us. It is 
not an easy one to learn, for we all want to erect 
our pile to God on the summit of the hill, where it 
will be seen by all the world. We easily forget 
that sometimes the greatest work we can perform 
for him is to do quietly and sweetly the little 
things he gives us to do. He stands by us as 
a fellow-workman when we labor thus for him. 



@n tfje SHtiujs of Jiffe Song. 

The last song Mozart sang was his sweetest. 
He had spent weeks upon it, and after giving the 
last touches he fell asleep. His daughter entered 
at length, and her footsteps awoke him. 



72 ON THE WINGS OF HIS SONG. 

" Come here, my Emilie," he said, " my task 
is done. The requiem, my requiem, is finished." 

"Say not so, my father," answered the gentle 
girl. "You must soon be better. Even now 
your cheek has a glow upon it." 

"Do not deceive yourself, my child," said the 
dying father. " This wasted form can never be 
restored. Take these notes, my last notes, sit 
down by my piano, and sing them. Let me hear 
once more those tones which have been so long 
my solace and my joy." 

Emilie did as her father requested, and sang, 
in a voice enriched with tenderest emotion, the 
sweet requiem he had composed. Turning from 
the piano, she looked into her father's face for 
his approving smile. Instead of this she saw the 
still passionless smile which the rapt and joyous 
spirit had left, with the seal of death upon the 
loved features. He had soared away to the 
eternal world, on the wings of his own last sweet 
song. 

We should so live, bravely, truly, obedjently, 
unselfishly, diligently, in faith and love and prayer, 
that the ending of our life may be a tender, im- 
mortal song, fit to bear away our spirit on its 
wings to the gates of blessedness. 



SWEET OUT OF BITTER. 73 



Stat ©ttt oi Bitter. 

Prosperity has never enriched the world as ad- 
versity has done. The best thoughts, the richest 
lessons, the sweetest songs that have come down 
to us from the past have not come from the 
minds and hearts of those who have known no 
privation, no suffering, no adversity, but are the 
fruit of pain, of weakness, of trial. Men have 
cried out for emancipation from the bondage of 
hardship, of sickness, of infirmity, of self-denying 
necessity, not knowing that the thing which 
seemed to be hindering them in their career was 
the very making of whatever was noble, beauti- 
ful, and blessed in their life. The cost of all 
truly helpful life is pain. We must not forget 
that redemption and heaven come to be ours 
only through the cross of the Son of God. In all 
life, the sweetest comforts and the richest bless- 
ings come to us at the cost of suffering and tears 
in those who went before us. The fruit of earth's 
" thorns" seems bitter to the taste, but it is the 
wholesome food of human souls. 



74 REACHING HOME AT LAST. 



SEeacrjtng p^ome at 3tast* . 

St. Pierre in one of his books tells of a French 
ship which had been beating about for months 
amid storms in the southern seas. One morning 
land was cried from the mast-head. Passengers 
and crew gathered on deck, awaiting in suspense 
the unveiling of the coming shore. Vague out- 
lines only were seen, so vague that the uncer- 
tainty almost broke the hearts of the watchers. 
Was it land? If so, what land? Could it be 
France? Was it indeed France? Or was it 
some strange country? Nearer and nearer they 
came. Clearer and more distinct became the 
outlines. xAfter some hours, hours that seemed 
days, the lookout cried, " France ! France ! It 
is France ! " The joy of the ship's company 
knew no bounds. They were indeed home after 
all their wanderings and all their dangers and 
fears. 

So will it be with us, when, through the mists 
of that sea which we call death, we approach the 
shores of eternal life. After the dimness of dying, 
our eyes shall open to behold the banks of the 
celestial land. Then the shout will be, not 
" France ! It is France ! " but " Heaven ! 
Heaven ! It is Heaven ! " The storms will all 



WHAT CHRISTIAN DYING IS. 75 

be past. We shall be in glory. Then we shall 
have life in all its fulness. Then we shall be at 
home. 



OTjat Christian ©rjtng I*. 

There is a story of a chamois hunter in the 
Mer de Glace who fell far down into a deep 
crevasse in the ice. After creeping along for a 
great distance, following a stream, he came ap- 
parently to the end of the passage. There 
seemed no opening further. The waters seethed 
and gurgled, and he knew there must be an out- 
let beneath the surface. He thought it might 
possibly lead out to some open place. He knew 
that to stay where he was would be swift death. 
So he plunged into the waters to be carried by 
them in their current. For a moment there was 
darkness — he was swept on in a wild rapid tor- 
rent. In a little time he was through the chasm 
and out in the bright sunshine. He had been 
borne out into the lovely vale of Chamouni, into 
the midst of its wondrous beauty, with flowers 
and bird songs all about him. 

Here is a parable of the Christian's dying. 
There is a moment's darkness and mystery as the 
spirit enters the valley, and then — heaven, the 



76 WORTH LIVING FOR. 

face of Jesus, glory, eternal life. There is no 
long experience of darkness. There is no painful 
struggle, no groping amid sepulchral shadows, 
no struggle with hideous enemies. " Absent from 
the body, at home with the Lord " is the inspired 
statement of the fact of Christian dying. One 
moment the believer closes his eyes on earth's 
friends, next moment he opens them in Heaven, 
on the face of Christ. 



* 



OEortfj ILtbtng tfor. 

Architects make their names immortal by 
rearing some noble building, some great cathedral, 
some gorgeous palace, which stands for ages to 
their honor. Artists carve in marble or paint on 
canvas or in fresco the splendid creations of their 
genius, and for centuries the world pays them 
homage. The poet writes in classic verse the 
fancies of his brain or the deeper thoughts of his 
soul and is crowned. These are noble achieve- 
ments. But it is nobler far when a young man 
takes his life from God, with reverence and faith 
and love, and builds a beautiful, holy manhood, 
for men, angels, and God to look upon through 
eternal years. That is the mission to which every 
young man is called. Surely it is noble enough 



THE WELL BY THE SEA. 77 

to call out the best energies of the soul. A living 
character is infinitely greater than a cold, lifeless 
statue. 

ftfje TOril f>2 tfje Sea, 

A tourist writes of a spring as sweet as any 
that ever gushed from sunny hillside, which one 
day he found by the sea, when the tides had 
ebbed away. Taking his cup he tasted the water 
and it was sweet. Soon the sea came again and 
poured its bitter surf over the little spring, hiding 
it out of sight. 

" Like a fair star, thick buried in a cloud, 
Or life in the grave's gloom, 
The well, enwrapped in a deep watery shroud, 
Sank to its tomb." 

When the tide ebbed away again, the tourist 
stood once more by the spring to see if the brack- 
ish waves had left their bitterness in its waters ; 
but they were sweet as ever. 

" While waves of bitterness rolled o'er its head, 

Its heart had folded deep 
Within itself, and quiet fancies led, 

As in a sleep; 
Till, when the ocean loosed his heavy chain 

And gave it back to-day, 
Calmly it turned to its own life again, 

And gentle way." 



78 CONQUERING TO SAVE. 

This is a picture of the peace in the heart of the 
Christian, when floods of bitter sorrow and trial roll 
over his life. From secret wells the sweet waters 
flow, crystal and fresh as ever. We know where 
these secret wells are, where these pure fountains 
rise. They have their source in the heart of God. 
It is Christ's own peace that he gives to us. He 
gives us his own life. It is divine life in the soul 
that makes peace for us in the time of earthly 
distress. 



Conquering to Sa&e. 

There is a story of a young knight, brave, 
manly, strong, who was victorious over every foe. 
In every combat he was successful, until he grew 
proud and self-confident. One day he went 
forth and stood before the gate of a great castle, 
and uttered his challenge. There came out a 
knight in armor, and after a brief combat defeated 
him. When the victor removed the armor he 
had worn, lo ! it was a woman, clad in spotless 
white. From henceforth she became the guide 
of the young man's life, leading him to nobleness 
and glory. 

The story is an allegory. The white castle is 
the castle of truth. The white garment is the 



THE SPLENDOR OF LOWLY DUTY. 79 

symbol of purity. Truth and purity are the qual- 
ities that give strength and victory and blessing. 
We never can make anything truly worthy and 
noble of our life until we meet Christ and are de- 
feated by him, brought to acknowledge him as 
our King and Master. He does not then show 
himself, however, as our enemy, but as our friend. 
Beneath the conqueror's armor we find the heart 
of love. He subdues us that he may save us. 
When we yield to him he becomes the guide of 
our life, leading us on to nobleness and glory. 



2Hje Splendor of ILornIg ffltttg. 

In one of Murillo's pictures in the Louvre, as 
described by a writer, one sees the interior of a 
convent kitchen ; but doing the work there, are, 
not mortals in odd dresses, but beautiful white- 
winged angels. One serenely puts the kettle on 
the fire to boil, and one is lifting up a pail of 
water with heavenly grace, and one is at the 
dresser reaching up for plates, and there is a 
little cherub running about and getting in the way, 
trying to help. All are so busy, and working with 
such a will, and so refining is the work as they do 
it, that somehow you forget that pans are pans 



So THE MEANING OF TIME. 

and pots pots, and only think of the angels and 
how very natural and beautiful kitchen work is — 
just what the angels would do, of course, if called 
upon to do it. 

The picture is very suggestive. It shows us, for 
one thing, the dignity of all duty, even of the 
humblest drudgery. The angels are not ashamed 
to be seen doing it. It is the motive and the aim 
that alone can consecrate anything we do, and the 
doing of God's will is always splendid work, 
though it be but washing dishes or cleaning a 
street. " The smallest roadside pool has its water 
from heaven and its gleam from the sun, and can 
hold the stars in its bosom, as well as the great 
ocean." So the humblest duty is a bit of God's 
will, and shines with heavenly radiance. This 
ought to be an inspiration to those who live in 
lowly places and can do only common task-work. 
Do it all well and as God's will, and no great man's 
brilliant deeds will shine more brightly than your 
little things in God's sight. 



2Tfje ^Hearting nf 2Etme, 

Our days are like beautiful summer fields, as 
God gives them to us. The minutes are lovely 



"IT IS ONLY PEARLS: 1 8 1 

blooming flowers and silvery grassblades, and 
stalks of wheat with their germs of golden foliage, 
or vines with their blossoms — prophecies of com- 
ing purple clusters. Oh, the fair possibilities of 
the days and hours and minutes as they come to 
us from God's hands ! But what did you do with 
yesterday ? How does the little acre of that one 
day look to you now? Is it waving with beauty? 
Are there no waste spots in it ? What did you do 
with the seven days of last week? How does 
that seven-acre field appear to you as you view 
it from the hilltop of the holy Sabbath? Are 
there no wasted minutes, no squandered hours? 



"It fe ©nig parte." 

An Arab once lost his way in the desert. His 
provisions were soon exhausted. For two days 
and two nights he had not a morsel to eat. He 
began to fear that he should die of hunger. He 
looked eagerly, but in vain, along the level sand 
for some caravan of travellers from whom he 
might beg some bread. At last he came to a 
place where there was a little water in a well, and 
around the well the marks of an encampment. 
Some people had lately pitched their tents there, 



82 POWER OF HABIT. 

and gathered them up and gone away again. 
The starving Arab looked around in the hope of 
finding some food that the travellers might have 
left behind. After searching awhile he came upon 
a little bag tied at the mouth, and full of some- 
thing that felt hard and round. He opened the 
bag with great joy, thinking it contained either 
dates or nuts, and expecting that with them he 
should be able to satisfy his hunger. But as soon 
as he saw what the sack contained he threw it on 
the ground in bitter disappointment, and cried 
out in despair, " It is only pearls ! " falling down 
in the desert to die. 

In the great crises of life this world's most 
prized things are only mockeries. If we cannot 
have bread, the bread of life, we shall perish. 



^ofocr of P?aiut 

A California stage driver had held the lines 
for many years ; and when he began to grow old, 
his hands were crooked into hooks and his fingers 
were stiffened in that shape so that they could not 
be straightened out. 

There is a similar process that goes on in men's 
souls when they continue to do the same things 



LOVE'S ANSWER TO MEN'S HATE. &3 

over and over. If you are trained, and train 
yourself, from childhood, to be gentle and patient, 
to control your temper, to resist wrong, your life 
will grow into beauty, and the peacefulness of 
your heart will at length shine upon your very 
face. On the other hand, if you give way from 
childhood to all ugly tempers, resentful feelings, 
all bitterness and anger, your life will grow into 
permanent disfigurement. 

One who accustoms himself to think of pure 
and holy things, who sets his affections on things 
above, and strives to reach whatsoever things are 
true, whatsoever things are honorable, whatsoever 
things are lovely, will grow upward toward the 
things he loves and thinks upon. But one who 
lets his mind turn habitually to debasing things, 
things unholy, unclean, sensual, will find his whole 
soul bending downward and growing toward the 
earth. 



3Lo&e'0 fetor to iUftm'* Sfate. 

There was an infidel soldier of the Middle Ages 
who hated the Bible and all sacred things. He 
grew so fierce and mad in his defiance that he 
determined to test the power of the Christians' 
God. So he went out into a field, armed as if 



84 LOVE'S ANSWER TO MEN'S HATE. 

for battle. He threw his glove down on the 
ground as a challenge. Then he looked up into 
the heavens and angrily cried : " God, if there be 
a God, I defy thee here and now to mortal com- 
bat. If thou indeed art, put forth thy power of 
which thy pretended priests make such boast." 
As he spoke he saw a piece of paper fluttering in 
the air just above his head. It fell at his feet. 
He took it up, and on it read these words : " God 
is love." Overcome by this strange response to 
his mad challenge, he broke his sword in token 
of surrender, and kneeling upon the fragments, 
gave his life thenceforth to the service of that 
God whom he had just before defied. . 

So it was that this world hated God and defied 
him ; and so it was that the answer came from 
heaven to all this defiance and rebellion, " God 
is love." 

This was the message that came wafted down 
on the still air, in the angels' song, that night 
when Christ was born. Cold was the world. 
Shut were men's hearts against God. The in- 
fidel knight hurling his wild defiance in the face 
of heaven is scarcely too awful a picture to use to 
illustrate the attitude of the chosen people toward 
the God who had so blessed them. Yet, to all 
this disobedience, this rejection, this defiance, the 
answer was, not judgment, swift and terrible, but 



NOT OURS TO SEE AND KNOW. 85 

the wonderful gift whose coming the angels sang. 
The response was, " On earth peace, good-will to 
men." And it is the same to-day. To all men's 
hate and rejection the message ever comes, "God 
is love." 



iM ©urs to &zz mto Ettatou 

Away down in the darkness, in the heart of the 
great steamer, the engineer stands. He never 
sees how the vessel moves. He does not know 
where she is going. It is not his duty to know. 
It is his only to answer every signal, to start his 
engine, to quicken or slow its motion, to reverse 
it, just as he is directed by the one whose part it 
is to see. He has nothing whatever to do with 
the vessel's course. He sees not an inch of the 
sea. 

It is not our part to guide our life in this world, 
amid its tangled affairs. It is ours just to do our 
duty, our Master's bidding. Christ's hand is on 
the helm. He sees all the future. He pilots us. 
Let us learn to thank God that we cannot know 
the future, that we need not know it. Christ 
knows it, and it is better to go on in the dark 
with him, letting him lead, than to go alone in 
the light, and choose our own path. 



86 A STORY OF CONSECRATION. 



21 <§torg of Consecration. 

Few names in modern missionary days shine 
with more splendor than that of Harriet Newell. 
It broods over those who read the simple story 
like the image of a crowned and glorified saint. 
When eighteen years of age she was asked to go 
to a foreign, heathen land as the wife of a mission- 
ary. It was not so easy then to go as it is now ; 
but she accepted the call and was soon on her 
way to India. She and her husband arrived at 
length on the heathen coast, only to remain a few 
weeks and to be sent away. With heavy hearts 
they put to sea again. The young wife was 
stricken with fever, and in the autumn days, at 
the early age of nineteen, she joyfully surrendered 
her life to her Saviour. 

Thus in one short year the Christian woman 
became missionary, wife, mother, and saint. She 
seemed to accomplish nothing. She merely sailed 
away over the sea with a great love in her heart, 
to be exiled, to die, and to find a grave amid 
strangers. She taught no heathen woman ; she 
told the story of redemption to no benighted 
soul. But was that lovely young life wasted? 
No ; all this century her name has been one of 
the strongest inspirations to missionary work. 



" THOU KNOW EST NOT NOW:' 8 J 

The story of her consecration has kindled in 
many other women's hearts along the years the 
flames of love, sending them to carry Christ to 
dark lands. God broke the alabaster casket 
which held her life that the fragrance might flow 
out over the world. 

We must get the same spirit in us, if we would 
become in any large and true sense a blessing to 
the world. We must be willing to lose our life — 
to sacrifice self, to give up our own way, our own 
ease, our own comfort, if we would be truly help- 
ful to the world. 



" SHjou 3&nafoest not Nofo," 

There was a widow who had a noble daughter. 
The mother had had many trials. This daughter, 
however, had grown to be a wonderful comfort to 
her mother. The mother had lived for her child 
all the years. By dint of much toil and sacrifice 
she had helped her through a long and splendid 
course of education. She had been graduated 
with high honor from one of the finest colleges in 
the land. Then she had taught two or three 
years, earning a little money, and had gone abroad, 
spending a year in study in Paris. Returning 
she had resumed teaching, and was earning a 



88 LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE. 

good salary. At the Christmas time the daughter 
was full of plans for her mother's comfort as old 
age was creeping on for her. She hoped in a 
little time to take her away from toil and care, 
and to reward her, in some way, for all her sacri- 
fices and self-denials. 

Then sudden death came to this noble child. 
The mother who had been living for her through 
the bright years, and who was now beginning to 
realize the reward of all her labors and the fruit 
of all her self-denial, was called at midnight to 
go a hundred miles to look at the child of her 
sweet hopes sleeping in voiceless death. Could 
she see the goodness of God in that strange ex- 
perience ? It is in such experiences as these that 
faith saves us. We cannot see, but we believe 
that the love of God never fails. Hence we can 
bow our head in silence, knowing that all is well. 



3Lrt gout 3Lu$t Sfjttu. 

Did you ever stand at the foot of a great light- 
house at night? Through brilliant lenses splendid 
floods of light were poured out to sea ; but not 
one tiny little gleam of radiance did that great 
lamp pour on the bit of sand close around the 



LOVE BLOSSOMING TOO LATE. 89 

base of its tower. Do not be like light-houses in 
this regard. Wherever else, far away or near, you 
pour the beams of your Christian life, be sure you 
brighten the space close about you in your own 
home. Let the light of gentleness, forbearance, 
kindness, unselfishness, and thoughtful ministry 
fall on the life next to yours, on your weary 
mother, your burdened father, your tempted 
brother ; upon the children in your family, on 
the guests who drop in, on servants who help in 
domestic duties. Carry Christ home and serve 
him best there. 



3Lorje Blooming too Slate* 

There is a great host of weary men and women, 
toiling on through life, toward the grave, who 
most sorely need, just now, the cheering words 
and helpful ministries which we can give. The 
incense is gathering to scatter about their coffins ; 
but why should it not be scattered in the hard 
paths on which their feet to-day are treading? 
The kind words are lying in men's hearts unex- 
pressed, trembling on their tongues unvoiced, 
which will be spoken by and by, when these weary 
ones are sleeping ; but why should they not be 
spoken now, when they are needed so much, and 



90 LOVE BLOSSOMING TOO LATE. 

when their accents would give such cheer and 
hope ? The flowers are growing to strew on their 
graves; but why not cut them now to brighten 
dreary lives and dark paths. 

Many a good man goes through life, plain, 
plodding, living obscurely yet living a true, Chris- 
tian life, doing many a quiet kindness to his 
neighbors and friends, yet seldom hearing a word 
of commendation or praise. The vases, filled 
with the incense of affection, are kept sealed. 
The flowers are not cut from the stems. One 
day you stand by his coffin, and there are enough 
kind things said to have brightened every hour of 
his life, if only they had been said at the right 
time. There are enough flowers piled upon his 
casket to have kept his chamber filled with fra- 
grance all through his years, if only they had 
been sent day by day. How his heavy heart 
would have thanked God, if, in the midst of his 
toils, burdens, and struggles, he could have heard 
a few of the words of affection and approval that 
are now wasted on ears that hear them not ! How 
much happier he would have been in his weary 
days if he had known how many generous friends 
he had ! But, poor man ! he had to die before 
the appreciation could express itself. Then the 
gentle words spoken over his cold form he could 
not hear. The love blossomed out too late. 



SURE RELIEF AT LAST. 91 



Sure 3Mttf at 3La@t. 

In one of the campaigns in India, during the 
great insurrection, the English army were shut in 
Lucknow, besieged, almost at the point of starva- 
tion. Hope was wellnigh dead in their breasts. 
They had looked long for rescue, but none came. 
One day a Scotch lassie thought she heard the 
shrill sound of the bagpipe afar off. Then others 
heard it. It came nearer and nearer. Then the 
music of a full military band was heard ; and 
soon, from out the forest that long-besieged 
garrison saw the relief army advancing with 
banners and spears. The siege was broken and 
the besieged garrison was delivered. 

So it will be with those whom God calls to 
stand and wait in his service. They are shut in, 
besieged, weary, disheartened. Sometimes de- 
spair wellnigh breaks down their hope. They 
are ready to give up. I say to such people, 
Never give up. There is plenty of blue sky 
behind the clouds. " Having done all, stand ! " 
God's hours are long ; he works for eternity, " in 
whose wide sweeps there is space enough for all 
crooked paths to grow straight, and for the slow- 
est harvest to ripen." Wait for God. Stand 



92 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

where he has placed you. It is yours to serve, if 
not by grand achievements, and sublime activities, 
yet by fidelity in standing for God. 



Recognition in f^eabnu 

An old drummer entered a town in the West a 
number of years ago, and began to drum to the 
crowd that gathered. Among others came an 
old man with his fife. They proposed to play 
together. The old fifer began, but in a moment 
the drummer dropped his sticks, looked at the 
fifer, lifted the wolf-skin cap he wore, and gazed 
intently into the old man's face. " John, didn't 
you play that at Lundy's Lane that day, as the 
sun was going down?" And the fife dropped 
with the drum sticks, and the two old soldiers 
were in each other's arms. Time had scarred 
them from head to foot. At first they did not 
recognize each other, but the music revealed the 
one to the other. That martial air they had 
played together in the storm of battle, and it un- 
locked the chamber of memory. 

May it not be so in heaven ? In the changes 
produced by long separation, one in heaven and 
the other on earth, two friends may not at first. 



CHRIST'S ERRAND FIRST. 93 

know each other. But some word spoken, or 
some song sung, or some touching of the keys of 
memory, will cause all the sweet past to live once 
more, and they will clasp again in all the old 
love's warmth. 



A beautiful story is told of Lady Augusta 
Stanley. One day when she was dressed for a 
reception at the queen's palace, a messenger 
came in great haste from one of the hospitals. A 
poor woman, whom Lady Stanley had often visited 
and comforted, was about to undergo a painful 
surgical operation. When the surgeons came to 
perform the operation and told her of it, she 
begged that Lady Augusta should be sent for. 
"If she will hold my hand," said the woman, "I 
can endure it." Lady Stanley was just leaving to 
attend upon the queen, but, throwing a cloak over 
her rich dress, she hastened to the hospital in- 
stead. She sat down by the poor sufferer, spoke 
to her a few brave, cheerful words, and then held 
her hand until the operation was finished. 

This incident illustrates the way we should re- 
spond always to Christ's calls for ministry to any 
of his little ones. No matter how busy we are, 



94 IMMORTALITY OF INFLUENCE. 

when a sufferer needs us, all must be dropped, 
that we may go quickly on love's errand. We 
may be trying to get needed rest, hoping nothing 
will disturb us, but if human sorrow or pain needs 
us, we must give up our rest. The Master's 
errands to his little ones are always first duties. 
We dare not neglect them, nor can we postpone 
them, for they cannot wait our leisure. 



Emmortalttjj of Influence. 

The things we do on earth do not cease to 
have influence after our death. If you speak a 
word into the air, or sing a song, the reverbera- 
tions will quiver around and around the world and 
through space, forever ; if you drop a pebble into 
the sea, its plash will start ripples which will 
tremble through the water, on and on, until they 
have broken on every shore of the ocean. So it 
is true that every good word spoken in this world, 
every sweet song sung, every holy thought or im- 
pulse of blessing started, shall go on and on, until 
the end of all things. In this sense our works 
shall follow us. The things we do for Christ here, 
the inspirations we put into immortal lives, the 
lessons we teach, the influences of good we start, 
shall not die with us. 






THE PRINT OF THE NAILS. 95 

One plants a tree, and, long after he is dead, 
weary ones rest at noonday beneath its shade, 
and pluck its fruits to feed their hunger. David 
has been dead nearly three thousand years, and 
yet his words are following him in all Christian 
lands, as his songs are sung, their influence breath- 
ing through millions of hearts. Paul has been 
dead many centuries, but his works are following 
him wherever his words are read. The humblest 
believer who lives and sets in motion even one 
gentle word, or one helpful impulse, has started 
works which shall follow him until the end of time. 
Our life does not die out of this world when we 
leave it. 

&rje Print of tfje Watte. 

There is a strange legend of old St. Martin. 
He sat one day in his monastery cell, busily en- 
gaged in his sacred studies, when there came a 
knock at the door. " Enter," said the monk. 
The door opened and there appeared a stranger 
of lordly look, in princely attire. "Who art 
thou?" asked St. Martin. "I am Christ," was 
the answer. The confident bearing, and the com- 
manding tone of the visitor, would have overawed 
a less wise man. But the monk simply gave his 



96 THE PRINT OF THE NAILS. 

visitor one deep, searching glance, and then 
quietly asked, " Where is the print of the nails ? ' 
He had noticed that this one indubitable mark of 
Christ's person was wanting. There were no 
nail-scars upon those jeweled hands. And the 
kingly mien and the brilliant dress of the pre- 
tender were not enough to prove his claim while 
the print of the nails was wanting. Confused by 
this searching test-question, and his base decep- 
tion exposed, the prince of evil — for he it was — 
quickly fled from the sacred cell. 

This is only a legend, but it suggests the one 
infallible test that should be applied to all truth 
and to all life. There is much in these days that 
claims to be of Christ. There be those who 
would have us lay aside the old faiths, and accept 
new beliefs and new interpretations. How shall 
we know whether or not to receive them ? The 
only true test is that with which Saint Martin ex- 
posed the false pretensions of his visitor : " Where 
is the print of the nails?" Nothing is truly of 
Christ which does not bear this mark upon it. A 
gospel without a wounded, dying Christ is not a 
gospel. The atonement lies at the heart of Chris- 
tianity. The cross is the luminous centre, from 
which streams all the light of joy, peace, and 
hope. That which does not bear the marks of 
the Lord Jesus cannot be of him. 



CALL NO DUTY SMALL. 97 



Call no ©utg Small 

One day, in our Revolutionary War times, a 
lame boy, a blacksmith's boy, was very discon- 
solate because he could not go to fight the Hes- 
sians, as many of his companions had done. 
Some soldiers rode up to the shop in great haste, 
and wanted to know if there was any one there 
who could shoe a horse. Luke replied, " I think 
I can." When the horse was shod one of the 
men said, " Boy, no ten men who have left you to- 
day have served your country as you have." 

When you read in the history about Colonel 
Warner riding up just in time to save the battle 
of Bennington, remember that if Luke Varnum, 
the lame boy, had not been in the blacksmith's 
shop that day Colonel Warner's horse could not 
have carried him to the battle. We do not know 
when on our smallest acts destinies may turn. 
The greatest thing you can do any day is your 
duty, no matter how small it may be in itself. 
The will of God takes in all the tasks of the com- 
mon days, the matters of business, of household 
work, of school, of play. To fail in little things 
is to fail in doing God's will, and that mars the 
completeness of the life-work. 



98 UNRECOGNIZED ANGELS. 



SSttroogmjeft Angels. 

There is a picture called " The Angel of Conso- 
lation." A woman sits on the low rocks, looking 
out upon the sea. Desolation is all about her — 
not a flower, not a tree on the shore ; only sand, 
rocks, and breaking waves. Down into the wa- 
ters her heart's treasures have gone. Her face is 
stony in its despairing grief. Almost touching 
her shoulder, hovering over her bowed form, is 
an angel, white-robed, softly striking the strings 
of a harp. Does the mourner know how near to 
her the angel is? Does she hear the celestial 
music? No; she sits in dumb unconsciousness, 
sad and lonely, while God's minister of comfort 
waits so close, and while the notes of sweet music 
fall unheeded on her ear. 

Is not the picture true of many sorrowing ones? 
Is it not true, too, of many hungry lives, starving 
for other blessings ? They do not take the gifts 
that the common days bring. Angels come to 
them unaware, in homely or unattractive disguise, 
walk with them, talk with them, and then only 
become known to them when their places are 
empty. We do not begin to recognize the worth 
of even our nearest human friends. With a wealth 
of precious love, and almost infinite helpfulness, 



SAVED BY THE LAMB. 99 

they move beside us along the years ; but their 
garb is plain, and we do not see the splendor that 
is in them. It would be well were we to pray to 
have our eyes opened that we might see the com- 
mon angels God sends to bless our lives. 



Sabrt brj tfje Hatnb. 

On a little church in Germany stands a stone 
lamb which has an interesting history. When 
some workmen were engaged on the roof of the 
building, one of them fell to the ground. His 
companions hastened down expecting to find him 
killed. They were amazed, however, to see him 
unhurt. A lamb had been grazing just where 
he struck the ground, and falling upon it, the 
little creature was crushed to death, while the man 
himself escaped injury. He was so grateful for 
this wonderful deliverance, that he had an image 
of the lamb carved in stone and placed on the 
building as a memorial. The lamb saved his life 
by dying in his place. 

Every saved soul of the human family can 
point to the Lamb of God, and say, " I am saved 
because Jesus died in my stead." "Christ, our 
passover, is sacrificed for us." What memorial 
have we set up to witness to our gratitude and 
love? 



IOO THE SUNBEAM AND THE FOUL DROP. 



SHje Sunbeam anti tfje jfoul ©rop* 

In the foul gutter, in the city street, a drop of 
water lay, soiled, stagnant, polluted. Far up in 
the depths of the sky, a gentle sunbeam saw it 
and pitied it in its vileness, all its crystal beauty 
gone. The beam flew down to the dark gutter, 
kissed the foul drop, and thrilled it with new, 
strange hope. Soon it felt itself quietly lifted 
upward by ah impulse it could not resist — higher 
and higher through the air, and then wafted on, 
mile after mile. At last it lay on a mountain-top, 
pure, glorified — a snow-flake white as the holy 
beauty of heaven. 

You understand the parable. Thus human 
souls lie in earth's sins. Thus Christ's love and 
grace stream down and touch them in their base- 
ness. New desires spring up, longings for holi- 
ness, hungerings and thirstings after God. They 
lift up their eyes unto the hills. The divine 
Spirit draws them upward. At last they enter 
the life of Christ, then into heavenly blessedness, 
and sit down with Christ in glory — washed in 
the Lamb's blood and made whiter than snow. 



UNDEVELOPED BEAUTY. 101 

JHntfeMopeti BeautjL 

A lady who is always watching for beautiful 
things, brought from the mountain side, one 
autumn day, a sod of moss. She put it in her 
parlor, and soon in the genial warmth there 
sprung out from the bosom of the moss a multi- 
tude of sweet, delicate spring flowers. No eye 
had seen them before in the moss. The seeds 
had lain there all the summer waiting for the 
warmth to bring out their lovely possibilities. 

There are many lives just like that bit of moss. 
Living in the chill, loveless atmosphere of the 
world's hard toil, its selfishness, its sorrow, un- 
blessed by true affection, the best things in them 
are never brought out. Yet they need only to be 
touched by the warmth of tender sympathy, and 
beauties and graces, hitherto unsuspected, will 
blossom forth in them. 

The world needs nothing so much to-day as the 
life and love of Christ poured through human 
hearts and hands upon lives that are bleak and 
bare. It is not more churches that we need, 
more societies, more money gifts, but more living 
Christians, with the mind of Christ, who will go 
about among men and repeat the lowly blessed 
ministry of Christ himself, giving themselves in 
personal, self- forgetful service. 



102 FOR THE ASKING. 



jfor tf)e Asking. 

If God announced that he would give gold to 
every one that should ask him, how many would 
remain poor? Would not the gates of heaven be 
thronged perpetually with seekers for the dazzling 
gift? If crowns and honors and earthly prizes 
were promised for the asking, who would not ask 
for them? 

Now all the glorious things of divine love and 
grace are to be had, simply for the asking. Does 
it seem possible that any one should fail then to 
ask? Is it because it is a spiritual good that so 
few ask for it? Or do men really know, as they 
go on in their mad rush for money and power, that 
God himself may be had for the asking? They 
toil and sacrifice and wear out their lives and lose 
their souls, to gain riches that perish, while by 
falling on their knees, and turning their eyes toward 
God, and putting up an earnest cry to him, they 
would receive eternal possessions, imperishable 
crowns and treasures. 

" Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking; 

Tis heaven alone that is given away, 

'Tis only God may be had for the asking." 



THE GATE OF LIFE. 103 



Wo>z (gate of 3Ltfo 

There is a little poem which describes death 
in a very beautiful way. It tells of an ancient 
pilgrim, old, worn and spent, who crept down a 
shadowed vale, with bleak mountains on either 
side and a dark sky overhead. The pilgrim trod 
wearily and feebly, with bare feet, along the rug- 
ged path. The valley ended at length where a 
naked rock rose sheer from earth to heaven, as 
if to bar his way. At length, however, he saw 
a brazen door in the rock, and tottering toward it, 
read above its portal, " The Gate of Death." 

" He could not stay his feet that led thereto; 
It yielded to his touch, and, passing through, 
He came into a world all bright and fair; 
Blue were the heavens, and balmy was the air; 
And lo ! the blood of youth was in his veins, 
And he was clad in robes that held no stains 
Of his long pilgrimage. Amazed, he turned; 
Behold, a golden door behind him burned 
In that fair sunlight, and his wondering eyes, 
New lustreful and clear as those new skies, 
Free from the mists of age, of care, of strife, 
Above the portals read " The Gate of Life." 

What on one side was the gate of death, on the 
other side was the gate of life, 



104 OUT OF LIFE'S SILENCES. 

That is the true interpretation of death to one 
who believes in Christ. It is not loss but gain. 
It is not into darkness, but into marvellous, light. 
It is not into silence and stillness, but into life far 
more real and active. 



€htt of 3Life's Sttmces* 

The gems of the world's literature, the marvel- 
lous inventions of science and art, grand thoughts 
and words which live age after age, are the fruit 
of long pondering in silence. From the silent 
studio of a Raphael comes at length the work of 
art, before which the world pauses in rapt enthu- 
siasm. The poet broods long in silence and then 
gives to the world his immortal song and it sings 
on for ages in the hearts of men. The inventor 
knits his brow and bends over his models with 
intent, absorbing interest, in the hush of many a 
midnight, and by and by you see his perfected 
machine — a boon to the toiling race. The orator 
shuts his doors and in secret evolves great 
thoughts and writes grand sentences and polishes 
majestic periods ; and thousands are moved and 
swayed by his burning eloquence when he comes 
forth to speak ; and tyranny, oppression, and 
swept away. The Christian lingers 



BREAKING DOWN THE FENCES. 105 

long in the solemn hush of prayer and medita- 
tion, and when he reappears his face glows, his 
voice is fired with an inspiration born of heaven, 
and his arm is strong to do valiant deeds for his 
Lord. 

Breaking fflofotx tfje jjntces* 

A gentleman who went up in a balloon said 
that as he arose the fences that divided the coun- 
try into fields and farms faded out, until soon he 
saw only one great, wide, beautiful landscape of 
meadow and field and forest, with river and 
stream shining in rich loveliness beneath the pure 
skies. 

So it is as we rise nearer to God in love and 
faith and Christian experience. The fences that 
divide God's great church into ecclesiastical fields 
and farms fade out, until at last they vanish alto- 
gether and we see only one wide, holy, Christly 
Church. We are all one — thank God for that. 
The accidents of denominationalism are but of 
small account in comparison with the love of 
Christ, the cross, the Bible, the sacraments, which 
we all have in common. Let us learn to love one 
another as Christians. Love soon breaks down 
the fences. Let us help one another and comfort 
one another. 



io6 ONE STEP ENOUGH FOR ME. 



©ne Step ISnouglj for fflz. 

One who carries a lantern on a country road at 
night sees only one step before him. If he takes 
that one step, he carries the lantern forward and 
thus makes another step plain. At length he 
reaches his destination in safety, without once 
going into darkness. The whole has been made 
light for him, though only a single step of it at a 
time. 

This illustrates the usual method of God's 
guidance. His word is represented as a lamp 
unto the feet. It is a lamp — not a blazing sun, 
not even a lighthouse, but a plain common lamp 
or lantern which one can carry about ,in the hand. 
It is a lamp " unto the feet," not throwing its beams 
afar, not illumining a hemisphere, but shining 
only on the one little bit of dusty road on which 
the pilgrim's feet are walking. The duty for the 
moment is always clear and that is as far as we 
need concern ourselves ; for when we do the 
little that is clear we will carry the light on, and it 
will shine upon the next moment's step. 

" Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see 
The distant scene; one step enough for me." 



* 



A MINISTRY WITHOUT WORDS. 107 



jFamtmg at tfje Boot* 

There is a story of a prodigal who came back 
from the far country and could not find his 
father's house. He wandered on and on, and at 
last in the gathering night, sank down, heart-sick 
and faint, on the steps of a little cottage. With- 
out knowing it he was on his own father's door- 
step. Inside sat the aged father and mother, 
their hearts hungering for their long-lost boy. 
Outside, bowed and crushed and longing for love 
and for home, lay the weary, homesick son — on 
the very threshold of home, but not knowing it. 

So near to the gates of heaven is every human 
soul that is penitent, weary of sin, longing for 
divine mercy and love. There are many who are 
not yet in Christ's kingdom, but who have at 
least some desire for heaven's peace. They do 
not know where to find what they seek. But close 
by them is one of heaven's gates and they have 
but to arise in their penitence and enter into the 
Father's house. 

a iBttinfetrg fottrjout TOorta. 

If Christian service were all talking and praying 
in meetings, and visiting the sick, it would be dis- 



io8 THE STORY OF A POTTED ROSE. 

couraging to some talentless people. But are our 
tongues the only faculties we can use for Christ? 
There are ways in which even silent people can 
do service for God and be a blessing in the world. 
A star does not talk, but its calm, steady beam 
shines down continually out of the sky, and is a 
benediction to many. A flower cannot sing bird- 
songs, but its sweet beauty and gentle fragrance 
make it a blessing wherever it is seen. Be like a 
star in your peaceful shining, and many will thank 
God for your life. Be like a flower in your pure 
beauty and in the influence of your unselfish 
spirit, and you may do more to bless the world 
than many who talk incessantly. The living 
sacrifice does not always mean active work. It 
may mean the patient endurance of a wrong, the 
quiet bearing of a pain, cheerful acquiescence in 
a disappointment. 

" Noble deeds are held in honor; 
But the wide world sadly needs 
Hearts of patience to unravel 
The words of common deeds." 



&%e Stern of a ^ottrti Ease. 

In a sick-room there was a little rose-bush in a 
pot in the window. There was only one rose on 



THE STORY OF A POTTED ROSE. 1 09 

the bush, and its face was turned full toward the 
light. This fact was noticed and spoken of, when 
one said that the rose would look no other way 
save toward the light. Experiments had been 
made with it ; it had been turned away from the 
window, its face toward the gloom of the interior, 
but in a little time it would resume its old posi- 
tion. With wonderful persistence it refused to 
keep its face toward the darkness and insisted on 
ever looking toward the light. 

The rose has its lesson for us. We should 
never allow ourselves to face toward life's gloom ; 
we should never sit down in the shadows of any 
sorrow and let the night darken over us into the 
gloom of despair ; we should turn our faces away 
toward the light and quicken every energy for 
braver duty, and truer, holier service. Grief 
should always make us better and give us new 
skill and power ; it should make our hearts softer, 
our spirits kindlier, our touch more gentle ; it 
should teach us its holy lessons, and we should 
learn them, and then go on with sorrow's sacred 
ordination upon us to new love and better 
service. 



* 



HO STORING AWAY BEAUTY. 

2Hje Haste's Name. 

The celebrated statue of Minerva which stood 
in the Acropolis at Athens was renowned for its 
graceful beauty and its exquisite sculpture, but 
there was in it another feature which no close ob- 
server failed to notice. Deeply engraven in the 
buckler on the statue was the image of Phidias, 
the sculptor; it was so deftly impressed that it 
could be effaced only by destroying the work of 
art itself. 

In like manner, in the life of every true Chris- 
tian is the name of Christ ; it is so inwrought in 
the character, in the disposition, in the whole being 
that it cannot be destroyed. It is toward the fill- 
ing out of the meaning of this name that all 
Christian culture aims. All our lessons are les- 
sons in growing Christ-like. To get the beauty 
of Christ out of the Christian's life, the life itself 
must be utterly destroyed. 

Storing 2toag Beautg. 

A touching story is told of a young man who 
was rapidly and surely losing his eyesight. The 
physicians told him that he would not be able to 
see but for a few months. At once, accompanied 



CHRIST'S WONDERFUL LOVE. Ill 

by a sister, he set out to travel over Europe, tak- 
ing a last look at the beautiful things of this 
world, before his eyes should be closed forever. 
He wished to have his memory stored with lovely 
pictures of mountains, lakes, and waterfalls, of 
fine buildings and works of art, so that, when he 
should no longer be able to see, he might have 
these beautiful visions in his soul to lighten his 
gloom. 

To-day we are in life's rich sunshine, with 
beauty all around us. But darkness will come to 
us sometime, days when the light will fade away, 
the vision grow dim and the shadow thicken 
about us. We should prepare now, while we can 
see, against the coming of these dark days. We 
should walk in the light while we have the light. 
We should gather while we may into our heart all 
the love, joy, gladness, that we can store there. 
Then when the night settles down about us we 
shall have light shining within. 

ffi&rfet'* »antJ£rfut 3Labt, 

Ninety million miles come the sunbeams 
through space before they touch the roots and 
grasses and the flowers in the spring days, warm- 
ing and quickening them into life and beauty. 



112 WE CANNOT HIDE FROM GOD. 

Through thousands and thousands of years out of 
the great past, comes the love of Christ that to- 
day touches our hearts and blesses them with its 
divine tenderness. Christ loved his church ; he 
loved us from eternity. This dear love of his is 
not a sudden warmth, a recent affection, a thing 
of yesterday, an emotion kindled by our love for 
him ; he loved us when he hung on his cross ; he 
loved us before he left heaven and came to earth, 
drawn by love of us, to save us ; he loved us in 
the eternal ages and planned to redeem us. 
Then his love will be forever unchanging, ever- 
lasting. " Loved once " was never written or 
spoken of him. Oh love of Christ that passeth 
knowledge ! 



Wit Cannot Pffoe from (&cfc. 

Many years ago there lived a German countess, 
who violently disbelieved in a future life. She 
died at thirty years of age, and gave orders that 
her grave should be covered with a solid slab of 
granite, that around it should be placed square 
blocks of stone, and that the corners should be 
fastened to each other and to the granite slab by 
heavy iron clamps. It was done, and on the 
stone was cut : " This burial-place, purchased to 



MUSIC IN THE STORM. 113 

all eternity, must never be opened." Thus even 
in her grave she defied the Almighty. But, 
strange to say, a little seed sprouted under the 
covering, and its tiny shoot found its way between 
the stones, and grew there, slowly yet surely and 
steadily forcing itself, until the iron clamps were 
torn asunder, and the immense granite slab was 
lifted up by the growing roots. Now a great tree 
stands over the grave, and the stones lie against 
it. 

No wonder the people of Hanover regard it 
with almost superstitious feeling, as God's answer 
to the terrible defiance of the young countess. 
Certain it is, that her grave will prove no refuge 
to her in the day of God's wrath. Certain it 
is, too, that each one of us must stand before 
Christ's judgment seat. And in that dread day 
the only refuge will be Christ himself. The judge 
will be the Lamb, the Lamb that in all his glory 
appears as a Lamb that has been slain. The only 
refuge from Christ will be in Christ. 



JKustc in tfje Storm* 

A German knight wished to make a great 
/Eolian harp, and drew wires from tower to tower 



114 THE WAFTED LEAF. 

of his castle. Then he listened for the music. 
But while it was calm and peaceful in the air no 
sound came from his harp. By and by the breezes 
began to blow softly and gently, and he heard 
very faint strains, like the murmuring of sweet 
voices far away. At length a storm arose and 
swept over his castle in all its fury, and then rich 
and grand music came from the wires ; and the 
louder the tempest and the fiercer, the more 
majestic was the music of his harp. 

So it should be in the Christian heart. The 
storm of trial, instead of hushing the melody, 
should add to its richness. The greater our 
troubles, the sorer our sorrows, the more should 
we rejoice, the louder and sweeter should be our 
son^s. 



W$z OTaftefc 3Leai 

A pilgrim was wandering, thirsty, almost 
famished in the desert. He had lost his bear- 
ings. He had a compass in his hand, but knew 
not whether its needle pointed toward a place of 
rest and refreshment, or to a spot on which he 
must lie down to die. He was utterly in despair. 
Turn which way he would, he seemed to be 
wandering farther and farther away from hope. 



THE WAFTED LEAF. 115 

He had sunk down in the sand, resolved to meet 
his fate, when a little green leaf came wafted by a 
passing breeze, and fell at his feet. He picked 
it up, and a new hope took possession of his 
heart. The leaf could not have come far, for it 
was still fresh. Where it came from there was 
water, with shade and food. He knew the direc- 
tion, too, for the breeze had borne it to his feet. 
So, with the little leaf in his feverish hand, he 
arose and hurried away toward the spot whence 
it had come. Soon he was resting in the shelter 
of wide-spreading branches, and quenching his 
thirst at the spring which flowed at the tree's 
roots. 

There are times when our hearts are in spiritual 
unrest, their joy all gone. We are almost in de- 
spair, not knowing whither to turn, or what to do, 
to find rest. Then a little leaf flutters down to 
us from the Word of God. It is green and fresh. 
The dews of life are on it. It has not come far, 
and it tells of life, rest, and joy where it grew. 
We have but to rise out of our weariness and 
faintness, and hasten a little way to find a glad 
resting-place, and a shelter in the bosom of God's 
love. 



Ii6 A BRAND FROM THE FIRE. 



JBeatf, fottfj tjje form of Me, 

Somewhere in the Arctic ice-fields a ship was 
caught and held fast, and the men all died in the 
terrible cold. Years afterward a search-party 
found the little vessel, and as they drew near, it 
seemed as if the men were yet alive and at their 
post. The captain sat at a table, with his pen in 
his hand, writing his log. Others were found in 
their places — some at the ropes, one at the look- 
out, one at the helm ; but when the rescuers 
came closer they saw that the men were all dead. 
They had been dead for years, though having in 
their frozen state all the semblance of life. 

It would be a sad thing if the angels, as they 
fly over this earth on their rounds for God, ever 
see such a sight. God pity us if we are dead, 
any of us, in our Christian profession. The Church 
should not have in it one dead member. It should 
be alive from the minister to the least disciple. 

& Branti from % jRre, 

A skilful gardener passing along a street saw 
a root which had been thrown out of a garden. 
It seemed worthless. It had even been in the fire 



IN THE BRIGHT DAYS. 117 

and was blackened and burnt. But the gardener 
thought there might yet be a little life in it, and 
he saw a vision of the beautiful vine which might 
yet spring from this brand plucked from the burn- 
ing. So he bore it with him and planted it and 
it grew ; then he tended it with gentle care, and 
in due time a majestic vine, covered in the autumn 
with purple grapes, wreathed its festoons about 
the doors and windows of his house. 

So it is that the Lord in his gentleness deals 
with sinners. There may seem not a spark of 
life remaining in them, not a possibility of any- 
thing beautiful or good ; but he takes them up 
and pours his love upon them, and they grow into 
celestial beauty, and at length appear in heaven 
among the glorified. No human life is hopelessly 
lost while the love of God seeks the unsaved. 



En tJje 38riflfjft Bags. 

We need Christ just as much in our bright, 
prosperous, exalted hours as in the days of dark- 
ness, adversity, and depression. We are quite in 
danger of thinking that religion is only for sick- 
rooms and funerals, and for times of great sorrow 
and trial — a lamp to shine at night, a staff to 



n8 BE FAITHFUL AND WAIT. 

help when the road is rough, a friendly hand to 
hold us up when we are stumbling. This is not 
true. Jesus went to the marriage feast as well as 
to the home of sorrow. His religion is just as 
much for our hours of joy as for our days of grief. 
There are just as many stars in the sky at noon 
as at midnight, although we cannot see them in 
the sun's glare. And there are just as many com- 
forts, promises, divine encouragements, and bless- 
ings above us when we are in the noons of our 
human gladness and earthly success, as when we 
are in our nights of pain and shadow. We may 
not see them in the brightness about us, but they 
are there, and their benedictions fall upon us as 
perpetually, in a gentle rain of grace. 



* 



Be jFattfjful an* Siiatt 

A good many years ago there was a boy grow- 
ing up in a home of poverty, with no advantages. 
He was long and lank and awkward, a most un- 
gainly boy. He would lie on the earthen floor 
at night, when the day's work was done, reading 
by the dim firelight. There seemed little hope 
that the boy would ever be a man of power. But 
the years pass, and we see him President of the 



THE BEST YET IN STORE. 119 

United States. One day we see him taking a 
pen and signing a paper which sets free three 
millions of slaves, and writes the name of Lincoln 
among the immortal names. 

Just go on with your daily tasks, doing the best 
you can in your circumstances, and wait for God's 
time. It takes months for the apple to grow 
mellow and sweet on the tree. If you are a 
disciple of Christ, God is going to make some- 
thing very beautiful, very noble out of your life, 
when his work on it is finished. You will not 
always be struggling with faults, fainting under 
infirmities, bowing beneath burdens, striving in 
vain against difficulties. It doth not yet appear 
what you will be ; but there is glory in reserve 
for you, if only you are faithful. 



2Hje Best get in Store. 

The ancient passover was but a prophecy of 
something better — that which we have now — 
Christ our passover sacrificed for us. So the 
Lord's Supper is but the picture of something 
which will be infinitely better, being with Christ 
himself. Look forward, then, ever to the heavenly 
blessedness. After the night's toil of the disciples 



120 HOW A WRONG HEART MARS. 

on the sea, our Lord had a meal ready for them 
on the shore. So he gives us these precious 
meals along the way, feeding us with love. How 
sweet it is when we are weary with toil, or with 
sorrow, or with struggle, or with disappointment, 
to find a fire of coals burning, and fish laid 
thereon, and bread all made ready for us, by a 
Saviour's thoughtful love. 

But that is not the best. When the long night 
of painful, weary toil is over, and we come near 
the shore, and the morning begins to break, we 
shall see the blessed form of Jesus standing on 
the heavenly side, watching us, waiting to receive 
us. And when we reach the shore we shall find 
there ready for us a feast of heavenly gladness. 
Earth's communions, sweet as they are, are not 
the best that we shall have. We shall sit down 
at the " marriage supper of the Lamb" by and 
by, and that will be best ; for it will be eternal 
blessedness. We shall go no more out forever. 



* 



P^fo a amrong ^eart fHars, 

A lady lost a little daughter, her only child. 
Her sorrow was very great, and to keep her 
hands busied in something about the child she 



HOW A WRONG HEART MARS. 121 

took a photograph of her that she had, and with 
rare skill painted it till the sweet face seemed to 
live before her eyes. When the work was com- 
pleted she laid the picture away in a drawer. In 
a few days she looked at it again, and it was 
covered with ugly blotches. The eyes and the 
features were sadly marred. Again, with loving 
patience, she went over the photograph with her 
brush until it was as beautiful as before, with all 
the witchery of life. Then she laid it away again, 
but when she went to it she found it a second 
time covered with marring spots. It was alto- 
gether ruined. There was something wrong with 
the paper. Some chemical ingredient in it, min- 
gling with the paint, produced the spots. No 
matter how beautiful the picture was made on its 
surface, up ever out of the heart of the paper 
would come the ooze of decay, spoiling it all. 

So it is with human lives. While the heart is 
wrong it is no use to try to make the character 
right. Evermore up out of the evil heart comes 
the pollution of sin, and spots and blotches every- 
thing. The only way to have a pure and noble 
life is by having a clean, good heart. 



122 THE IMAGE ON THE SOILED NAPKIN. 



&{je Image on tfte Smlrt Napfthu 

There is a story of an artist in the olden days, 
who was falsely charged with crime and cast into 
prison. He was given his paints and brushes, but 
not a thing on which he might paint. One day a 
man came to his cell door and said to the artist, 
" I wish you would paint me a picture." — "I 
would," he replied, "if I had anything on which 
to paint it." The visitor looked about him, and 
on the floor of the prison corridor he found an 
old soiled napkin. " Paint it on this," he said, as 
he passed it into the cell. The artist began at 
once, and continued his work until the picture 
was finished. It was a picture of the Christ, a 
marvellously beautiful one, which afterward found 
a place in one of the old cathedrals. Thus the 
artist redeemed the napkin from destruction and 
dishonor and consecrated it to highest honor and 
sacredness. 

There is no human life so soiled, so debased, 
but on it the image of Christ can be put by the 
Spirit of God. You may be the artist through 
whose hands God may choose to work in thus re- 
deeming a life from ruin to its true and holy use. 



* 



HEROIC FAITHFULNESS. 123 



In 1869 there was a fever in the house of the 
keeper of the Ellis Bay light-house, and at the 
same time the machinery broke down. This light 
revolves and flashes every minute and a half. If 
it should stop revolving and flash no more, pass- 
ing vessels would mistake it for some other light, 
and: would be misled by it and possibly wrecked. 
The heroic light-house-keeper determined, when 
the machinery broke down, to work the light and 
keep it revolving by hand. For twelve long 
hours every night he sat there in the turret, with 
his watch beside him, and turned the light at the 
right moment. Vessels away out at sea saw the 
flashes at the proper intervals and went safely on 
their course. It was nearly a year before the 
government vessel came to the dreary spot with 
new supplies. During all that time there was 
sickness in the keeper's family. His children lay 
ill unto death, and all day long he watched and 
nursed them ; then as night fell on the iron- 
bound coast, he hastened to his place in the 
turret, to turn the light by hand till morning. 

This incident illustrates true faithfulness — 
firm, unyielding, loyal to every duty to God and 
humanity, true even unto death ; and yet, note 



124 THE NOBLE LIFE. 

how gentle and tender it is. Wrought into the 
heroic integrity and devotion to duty was the 
affectionateness of true fatherhood. In every 
worthy life we find both these qualities. Beneath 
the armor of steel beats ever the gentle heart. 



SRjc Noble life. 

There is an Oriental story of two brothers, 
Ahmed and Omar. Each wished to perform a 
deed whose memory should not fail, but which, 
as the years rolled on, might sound his name and 
praise far abroad. Omar, with wedge and rope, 
lifted a great obelisk on its base, carving its form 
in beautiful devices, and sculpturing many a 
strange inscription on its sides. He left it to 
stand in the hot desert to cope with its gales — 
his life's monument. But Ahmed, with deeper 
wisdom, and truer though sadder heart, digged a 
well to cheer the sandy waste, and planted about 
it tall date-palms to make cool shade for the 
thirsty pilgrim, and to shake down fruit for his 
hunger. 

These two deeds illustrate two different ways 
in which we may live. We may think of self and 
worldly success and fame, living to gather a fort- 



"THE WORD IS NIGH THEE." 1 25 

une or to make a name splendid. Or we may 
make our life like a well in the desert, with cool 
shade about it, to give drink to the thirsty, and 
shelter and refreshment to the weary and faint. 



* 



The throne of Russia was once occupied by 
two boy princes. They sat side by side and 
gave their decisions on the gravest questions ; and 
their judgments were so wise and just, that men 
marvelled that princes so young and inexperi- 
enced could know so much of statecraft, or speak 
with such discretion on questions so difficult. 
But the secret was that close behind the throne 
where they sat, hidden by a thin veil, was the 
Princess Sophia. She heard the cases that were 
brought to them, and she gave the decisions 
which they delivered. They referred every ques- 
tion to her, and waited until she had whispered to 
them the wise answer which they gave out. 

So the word of Christ should dwell in our 
heart. It is unseen, but only a thin curtain con- 
ceals it. We are to refer every matter to the 
divine Spirit and wait for his decision. Then 
what he bids us do we are to do. Thus Christ 



126 THE QUIET VOLCANO. 

will rule every thought, every feeling and affec- 
tion. He will settle every point of duty. He 
will mould our business methods. He will sit as 
infallible umpire in all questions of pleasure, of 
profit, of ambition. " The word is nigh thee." 



* 



8Hje ©met Folcano. 

The volcano is quiet and silent for years. No 
fires and lava pour forth from its crater. Mean- 
while people venture up its slopes, and lay out 
their gardens, and build their villas, and plant their 
vineyards ; and flowers bloom, and fruits hang in 
purple clusters, and beauty covers the once fire- 
swept, lava-furrowed mountain- slopes. But has 
the volcano really been tamed? Have its fires 
been put out? Is all permanently peaceful in 
the mountain's heart? 

Is it otherwise in the breast of him who has 
merely trained himself into good moral and 
ethical habits ? What the best mere self-culture 
can do for a life is no more than the planting of 
flowers and vineyards on the volcano's sides 
while all its fires still burn within, ready to break 
forth again any day in all their old fury. Good 
manners are not religion. The heart must be 



AT THE DOOR. 127 

changed. The heart of stone must be made a 
heart of flesh. The heart that hates God, and 
goodness and holiness and purity, must become a 
heart that loves God, and loves his way and his 

will. 



at tije ©oor. 

In Holman Hunt's great picture called " The 
Light of the World," we see One with patient, 
gentle face, standing at a door which is ivy- 
covered, as if long closed. He is girt with the 
priestly breastplate. He bears in his hand the 
lamp of truth. He stands and knocks. There 
is no answer and he still stands and knocks. His 
eye tells of love ; his face beams with yearning. 
You look closely and you perceive that there 
is no knob or latch on the outside of the door. 
It can be opened only from within. 

Do you not see the meaning? The Spirit of 
God comes to your heart's door and knocks. 
He stands there while storms gather and break 
upon his unsheltered head, while the sun de- 
clines, and night comes on with its chills and 
its heavy dews. He waits and knocks, but you 
must open the door yourself. The only latch is 
inside. 



128 A LESSON FROM TWO BIRDS. 



Pettefo fart not dfjawjetf. 

A story is told of a man who took a young 
tiger and resolved to make a pet of it. It moved 
about his house like a kitten, and grew up fond 
and gentle. For a long time its savage, blood- 
thirsty nature seemed changed, and it was quiet 
and harmless. But one day the master was play- 
ing with his pet, when by accident his hand was 
scratched and the beast tasted blood. That taste 
aroused all the tiger nature, and the ferocious 
animal flew on his master to tear him to pieces. 

So it is with the passions and sins and lusts of 
our old natures, that are only petted and tamed, 
and allowed to stay in the heart. They still 
crouch at the door in treacherous lurking, and in 
some unguarded hour they rise up in all their old 
ferocity. It is never safe to make pets of young 
tigers. It is never safe to make pets of little sins. 



S 3Lesson from 2Etoo Birts. 

There are two ways of meeting hard conditions 
of life, or experiences of trial and pain. Here is 
a lesson from two birds. One bird put into a 
cage tries in every way to escape. It flies against 



THE MASTER'S TOUCH. 129 

the wires and struggles and beats its prison walls ; 
but it only hurts itself, bruises its breast and bat- 
ters its wings until they bleed. It accomplishes 
nothing by all its struggles. But a canary bird 
when put into a cage perches quietly on the bar 
and sings. It accepts its condition and makes 
the best of it. 

These two birds show two ways of meeting 
hindrances or limitations of any kind. Some 
people resist and struggle against everything that 
shuts them in, however useless and hopeless re- 
sistance and struggle are ; but they only hurt 
themselves and do not break down the walls. 
Others accept whatever is inevitable as the will of 
God for them, and sweetly and quietly submit to 
it, singing with gladness in their heart. Which is 
wiser? 



2Tfje ilHagter'g SEoudj, 

It is said that once Mendelssohn came to see 
the great Freiburg organ. The old custodian re- 
fused him permission to play upon the instrument, 
not knowing who he was. At length, however, he 
reluctantly granted him leave to play a few notes. 
Mendelssohn took his seat and soon the most 
wonderful music was breaking forth from the 



130 FAILING OF GOD'S INTENT. 

organ. The custodian was spell-bound. He 
came up beside the great musician and asked his 
name. Learning it, he stood humiliated, self- 
condemned, saying, " And I refused you permis- 
sion to play upon my organ ! " 

There comes One to us and desires to take our 
lives and play upon them. But we withhold our- 
selves from him, and refuse him permission, when, 
if we would yield ourselves to him, he would bring 
from our souls heavenly music. 

" We are but organs mute, till a master touches the keys — 
Verily vessels of earth into which God poureth the wine; 
Harps are we, silent harps that have hung in the willow 

trees, 
Dumb till our heart-strings swell and break with a pulse 

divine." 

Jailing of ©oto's Intent 

There was at Baalbek ages since, a magnificent 
Temple of the Sun, some of whose pillars are yet 
standing. Near by is the quarry from which 
came the stones for the wonderful temple. In 
this quarry, almost detached from its rock, 
dressed and ready for its place in the temple, is 
an immense column, seventy feet in length. A 
vacant place in the temple is waiting for it, and 
for four thousand years this column has lain there 



THE PLACE OF PEACE. 131 

in the quarry. It has never occupied the place 
for which it was designed. 

There are many men like that useless monolith. 
Made for a noble destiny, with grand possibilities, 
they have missed it all for want of a lofty purpose 
and a worthy energy. They folded their talents 
away in the napkins of supposed humility, of self- 
distrust, or of indolence and disobedience, and 
buried them in the earth. They will lie forever 
among the wastes and rains of life, pale ghosts of 
glorious " might have beens," while the places in 
God's temple which they were meant to fill remain 
vacant. It is a glorious thought that each of our 
little lives is a plan of God, that God made us for 
something definite and particular. Let our high- 
est aim be to become what he made us to be. 
Let us never shrink from any task or duty to 
which he calls us. Let us train ourselves to obey 
every call of God, lest, in our hesitancy or dis- 
obedience, we fail of the mission for which we 
were made, and meet the doom of the useless in 
God's universe. 



Kaulbach's picture of the Destruction of Jeru- 
salem shows in most vivid delineation the awful 
work of devastation going on — carnage and con- 



I3 2 THE PLACE OF PEACE. 

fiagration ; then off in the distance we see a little 
company of Christians quietly and peacefully 
moving away. The children play along the road- 
side, and the beasts nip the grass as they leisurely 
move on. Overhead are seen shadowy forms of 
guardian angels watching unseen over these pil- 
grims. 

The picture is true in its representation. In 
the times of greatest peril those who are Christ's 
are cared for by him, and are as secure as if they 
sat in sweet home shelters. There is only one 
thing for us to do — to be simply faithful in the 
midst of dangers and trials. We must ever do our 
duty. We must quietly endure whatever suffering 
or loss may come to us, doing what our Master 
bids, and leaving in his hands the whole matter 
of our protection and security. No harm can 
come to the least of the little ones who believe in 
Christ, and are faithful and true to him. At the 
centre of the wild cyclone, which bears devasta- 
tion and ruin in its awful sweep, there is a spot 
which is so quiet that a leaf is scarcely stirred, 
where a little child might sleep undisturbed. So 
in the heart of this world's most terrific storms 
and convulsions there is a place of perfect security. 
It is the place of duty and trust. "Thou wilt 
keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed 
on thee." 



"IF A LITTLE CHILD COMES." 133 



"If a ILittle ffifttlb tew." 

An interesting incident is recorded of Francis 
Xavier, the great Jesuit missionary. Once, on 
some field of labor where hundreds came with 
their needs, their questions, and their heart-hun- 
gers, he was worn almost to utter exhaustion by 
days and nights of serving. At last he said to his 
attendant, "I must sleep ! I must sleep ! If I do 
not I shall die. If any one comes — whoever 
comes — waken me not. I must sleep." He 
then retired into his tent, and his faithful servant 
began his watch. It was not long, however, till a 
pallid face appeared at the door. Xavier beckoned 
eagerly to the watcher and said in a solemn tone, 
" I made a mistake. I made a mistake. If a 
little child comes, waken me." 

There is something in this wondrously like the 
Master, who was never so weary but the coming 
of a little child awoke all his love. Once indeed 
his disciples, perhaps in thought-fulness for him, 
would have kept away the little ones ; but Jesus 
rebuked them with words ever memorable and 
dear to the children : " Suffer the little children 
to come unto me, and forbid them not." 



* 



134 THE MOST PRECIOUS THING. 



8Hje JHost Precious SHiing, 

Those who are familiar with the beautiful story 
of Paradise and the Peri in " Lalla Rookh " will 
remember how the banished Peri sought to gain 
admittance at the closed gate of Paradise. The 
angel told the nymph that there was one hope — 
that the Peri might yet be forgiven who would 
bring to the eternal gate the gift that was most 
dear to heaven. The Peri wandered everywhere, 
sweeping all lands with her swift wings, searching 
for some rare and precious thing to carry up to 
the barred gate. Amid scenes of carnage she 
found a hero dying for liberty, and 

" Swiftly descending on a ray 
Of morning light, she caught the last, 
Last glorious drop his heart had shed." 

With this she flew up to the gate ; but, precious as 
was the boon, the crystal bar moved not. Next 
in her quest the Peri came upon a dying lover, 
over whom his betrothed hung, and stealing the 
farewell sigh of that vanishing soul, again she 
sought the gate of bliss ; but even to this precious 
boon the bar swung not. Again she wandered 
far, and came at last upon a wretched criminal, 
stained by countless deeds of shame and blood, 



THINGS WE CAN NEVER GET OVER. 135 

but now weeping in bitter penitence. The Peri 
with joy caught up the holy tear of contrition as 
it fell, and swiftly bore it away to heaven ; and 
the door flew open admitting her to blessedness 
within. 

This beautiful Oriental legend is not untrue to 
heavenly fact. The Bible tells us the same thing. 
No offerings we can bring are so precious in the 
sight of heaven as contrite tears. No song on 
earth rings with such music up in heaven as the 
penitential cry, " God be merciful to me a sinner." 



2Hjiwj8 to tan 'Ntbtx get ©for* 

Displace the dew as it has fallen on the blush- 
ing fruit, and no skill can replace it. Press the 
rose-leaf and wound it, and none can give back 
the perfection of its tints. So it is with human 
character. When youth has once lost its inno- 
cence, when sin has once blasted the soul, when 
the first freshness of a God-given life is gone, no 
after repentance, reformation, or devotion to God, 
will ever make it the same. Memory is polluted, 
the imagination is assailed by impurities, habits of 
virtue are weakened, and the force of vice is 
strengthened. The wound may be healed, but 



136 FLO WERS OF PR A YER. 

the scar remains. God may forgive the sin and 
man may forget it ; but it is never altogether be- 
yond the vision of him who committed it. We 
never can be the same after transgression as if we 
had not transgressed. Some things God gives 
twice ; some many times ; but innocence no soul 
can ever get a second time. 



The old Talmudic legend of Sandalphon, the 
angel of prayer, suggests a wonderful transforma- 
tion as taking place in the human petitions that 
go up from earth's lowly places and from unholy 
lips to heaven's gate. Longfellow has wrought 
the beautiful legend into verse, telling of Sandal- 
phon, the angel of prayer, waiting at the outer- 
most gates of the City Celestial. 

" And he gathers the prayers as he stands, 
And they change into flowers in his hands — 

Into garlands of purple and red; 
And beneath the great arch of the portal, 
Through the streets of the City Immortal, 
Is wafted the fragrance they shed." 

This old rabbinical legend, though but a legend, 
surely does not exaggerate the truth about the 



NIGHT SHOWS THE STARS. 137 

acceptableness of prayer. Earth's sighs of faith 
and love and heart-hunger, though without beauty, 
sweetness, or worthiness in themselves, float up- 
ward and are caught by the listening Intercessor, 
and in his holy, radiant hands are transformed 
into lovely and fragrant flowers, and pour their 
perfume throughout all heaven's glorious man- 
sions. 

Nujljt Sfjotos tj)e Stars. 

There is an ancient picture of the Christ-child 
in the stable. The child lies upon the straw, the 
mother is bending over him, the wondering shep- 
herds are near, and in the background are the 
cattle. It is night, and there is only one feeble 
lantern in the place ; but from the infant child a 
radiance streams which lights up all the rude 
scene. 

So it is in sorrow-darkened hearts w T hen Christ 
truly dwells within. The light streaming from 
him who is the Light of the world, in whom is no 
darkness, illumines all the gloom of grief. In- 
deed, when Christ dwells in the heart, sorrow is 
a blessing, because it reveals beauties and joys 
which could not have been seen in the earthly 
light. It is one of the blessings of night, that with- 



138 HIS BLESSING MULTIPLIES. 

out it we could never see the stars. It is one of 
the blessings of trial, that without it we could 
never see the precious comforts of God. 

" Were there no night, we could not read the stars; 
The heavens would turn into a blinding glare; 
Freedom is best seen through prison-bars, 
And rough seas make the haven passing fair; 
We cannot measure joys but by their loss; 

When blessings fade away, we see them then; 
Our richest clusters grow around the cross, 

And in the night-time angels sing to men." 



Pfts Blessing fflulttplics. 

During the retreat of Alfred the Great at 
Athelnay, at Sometshire, after the defeat of his 
forces by the Danes, the following circumstance 
happened, which, while it convinces us of the 
extremities to which that great man was reduced, 
gives us also a striking proof of his pious, benevo- 
lent disposition. A beggar came to his little castle 
there and requested alms, when his queen informed 
him, " that they had only one small loaf remain- 
ing, which was insufficient for themselves and 
their friends, who were gone in quest of food, 
though with little hope of success." The king 
replied, " Give the poor Christian one-half of the 



"ONE OF THE LEAST OF THESE:' 139 

loaf. He that could feed five thousand men with 
five loaves and two fishes, can certainly make 
that half loaf suffice for more than our necessity." 
Accordingly the poor man was relieved, and this 
noble act of charity was soon recompensed by a 
providential store of fresh provisions, with which 
his people returned. 

Let us learn to take what we have and use it to 
bless others, and we shall be amazed at the results 
of blessing which will follow. The smallest gifts 
when Christ has breathed upon them and given 
them back to us, become an incalculable power 
for good. 

"©tie jrf tfje ILzmi of Wqzw" 

One of the most beautiful of the German 
legends tells how one Christmas-eve a poor man, 
coming homeward through the forest, heard a cry 
and found a little child, cold and hungry. The 
good man stopped, sought the little one in the 
wood, and took him with him to his house. His 
children gladly welcomed the stranger and shared 
their evening meal with him. Then while he sat 
there at the table, suddenly a change came over 
the child's appearance, and lo ! it was the Christ- 
child whom, unconsciously, the family had received 
in this needy, suffering little one. 



140 LIVING SWEETLY AMID TRIALS. 

It is only a legend, but its lesson is true. Christ 
is ever coming to our doors in the person of some 
poor or suffering one, and the reception we give 
the one he sends he regards as given to him. 
This ought to make us careful how we treat those 
who need sympathy and help, lest some time we 
slam the door in the face of Jesus. Let us rather 
receive the lowliest of his little ones as if it were 
Christ himself, with the beauty shining in his 
face. Then we shall always get the blessing. 



^Lining Sfoeetlg amitJ Striate, 

Many of us find life hard and full of pain. The 
world uses us rudely and roughly. We suffer 
wrongs and injuries. Other people's clumsy feet 
tread upon our tender spirits. We must endure 
misfortunes, trials, disappointments. We cannot 
avoid these things, but we should not allow the 
harsh experiences to deaden our sensibilities, or 
make us stoical or sour. The true problem of 
living is to keep our hearts sweet and gentle in 
the hardest conditions and experiences. 

If you remove the snow from the hillside in 
the late winter, you will find sweet flowers grow- 
ing there, beneath the cold drifts, unhurt by 



LOVE GIVING LIFE. 141 

the storm and by the snowy blankets that have 
covered them. So should we keep our hearts 
tender and sensitive beneath life's fiercest winter- 
blasts, and through the longest years of suffering 
and even of injustice and wrong treatment. That 
is true, victorious living. 



3Lobe ©t&trts 3Ltfa 

In a terrible winter many years ago, an army 
was flying from Moscow. In the army were a 
young German prince and some German soldiers. 
Many of the soldiers fell down and perished in 
the dreadful cold. One evening only a handful 
remained with the prince. They came to a 
ruined shed which had been built for cattle. 
There they sought shelter for the night. Hungry, 
cold, and weary, they lay down to sleep. The 
men were rough and stern, yet, when they saw 
their prince, used to comforts, spent, heart and 
body, sleeping now in the fearful night, they were 
moved to pity. They took off their own cloaks 
and laid them gently on him as he slept. Then 
they lay down themselves to sleep uncovered. 
Morning came, and the prince awoke, warm 
and refreshed. He raised his head. All was 



142 LIFE'S TRAGICALNESS. 

silent about him save the wild wind. Where 
were his men ? He saw their forms covered with 
snow. He called — no answer. One glance and 
he saw all. Their cloaks were all piled upon him, 
and they were dead — dead through love for 
him. 

You turn your eyes toward the cross, and there 
is Jesus dead, while in your soul are the warm 
throbbings of life. You have peace, joy, hope, 
comfort, while about him the winter winds of woe 
beat, and the snows of sorrow fall, — dead, that 
you might live. " Greater love hath no man than 
this, that a man lay down his life for a friend. " 



3LuVs 2ftagicalnasa. 

There is a picture which represents ambition. 
A young man is riding a swift and powerful 
steed. His mantle is flying behind him in 
the wind. His face is aglow with eager desire 
and anticipation. His eyes flash. He is con- 
sumed with eagerness as he seeks to grasp the 
prize. Before him rolls a ball of gold, on a 
narrow way. It is this that the young man is 
pursuing. On either side of the narrow path is a 
precipice, into which a stumble or a misstep may 



LIFE'S TRAG1CALNESS. 1 43 

plunge horse and rider. Beneath the feet of the 
flying steed lies the prostrate form of virtue, over 
which the youth has ridden in his mad chase. 
Behind, his bony hand extended toward the 
rider, is the shadowy skeleton form of death, 
coming in swift pursuit. The goal of ambition 
ahead, death in pursuit, virtue trampled under- 
foot, danger on either hand, — these are the 
elements of the picture. 

Is not the picture true in its delineation of the 
life of many men? You say it is too tragic? 
Nothing that art can do could overstate the real 
tragicalness of thousands of lives in this world. 
Made for endlessness, for immortality, men live 
as though death ended all, as though the 
grave's darkness were the close. Tragic? What 
are you living for? What are your central aims? 
Where is your goal? Where is your eye fixed? 
What place has the endless hereafter in your 
hopes and plans or as a force in your life ? Are 
you living only for time ? Is there nothing tragical 
in your life as it appears to the angels, who, 
with loving eagerness, watch us mortals in this 
world ? 



144 THE UNFASTENED DOOR. 



33acfe unto its fitst Srjain* 

One day President Lincoln and a friend were 
walking together in a field, when they found a 
little bird fluttering in the grass. It had fallen 
out of its nest in the bushes and could not get 
back again. The great gentle-hearted man 
stopped in his walk, stooped down, and picked 
up the little thing, and put it back into its place. 

If it is a noble deed for a great man to lift a 
fluttering bird back into its place ; if even help- 
ing one fainting robin unto his nest again is 
enough to redeem a life from uselessness, what 
work of high honor is it to help a fainting human 
soul back into its nest of faith and love in the 
bosom of God ! That is the work Christ is 
doing continually. That is what he wants us 
to do when we find a soul that has fallen out 
of its place of trust and peace. And there are 
many of them. They need a human hand to 
come and take them up and lift them into faith's 
confidence. 

W$z iHnfastnufc ©oar. 

There is a story of a widowed mother in the 
Highlands of Scotland, whose daughter, her only 



THE UNFASTENED DOOR. 1 45 

child, left her home and went away into a sinful 
life. The mother could only pray for her wan- 
dering one, but she never ceased to plead with 
God for her. At last, one dark night, at mid- 
night, the lost child came home. Creeping up to 
the cottage door she found it unfastened. Enter- 
ing, she was welcomed by her mother with great 
joy. When the greeting was over, the girl said, 
" Mother, why was the door unfastened to-night 
at midnight? " The mother replied, " Never, my 
child, since you went away, has the cottage door 
been locked by day or night. I prayed God to 
bring you home, and I left the door always un- 
fastened, that whenever you might come you 
might know you were welcome, and might enter 
at once." 

So it is with Christ, the "door " of God's love. 
This is a door that is easily opened ; it is never 
locked. Christ loves to admit lost ones to his 
Father's blessedness. No one who creeps up, 
however timidly, out of whatsoever sin, will be 
thrust away. When the dove, after all her rest- 
less flight, returned to the ark, it is a gentle touch 
in the story which says that Noah reached out his 
hand and drew the weary bird inside. That is 
the way Christ does when a soul, weary and faint, 
flies to the window of his love. With a hand in- 
finitely gentle, he draws it in. 



146 «HE DIED FOR ME." 



"P?e 39ieti for ffizr 

A touching story was told after our war, of 
a man who had travelled hundreds of miles, to 
one of our battle-fields, to stand beside the grave 
of a soldier who had fallen on that field. He 
was seen kneeling at the grave, the tears stream- 
ing down his cheeks. The stone he had just 
erected told the story. On it was the name of 
the dead, and underneath, " He died for me." 
The man who knelt there had been drafted. He 
had a sick wife and helpless little children, and 
this neighbor came and said, " You stay at home 
and I will go to the war for you." He fought 
bravely and fell, and slept now in this grave. 
This long journey, this costly stone, these stream- 
ing tears told of the love and gratitude of the 
man for whom this neighbor had died. 

That visitor at the grave lived because the 
soldier had died for him. We live and have 
hope, and are heirs of heaven and glory, because 
Jesus died for us. There is a wondrous motive 
for consecrated life in the realizing of the truth 
that we are Christ's — redeemed by the giving of 
his life for us. 



* 



"THE LEGEND BEAUTIFUL:' 147 



2Hjfe fe Wot tije 3EntL 

There are streams among the mountains which, 
after flowing a little way on the surface in a cur- 
rent, broken, vexed, and tossing, amid rocks, over 
cascades, through dark chasms, sink away out of 
sight and seem to be lost. You see their flashing 
crystal no more. But far down the mountain, 
amid the sweet valley scenes, they emerge again, 
these same streams, and flow away, no longer 
tossed and restless, but quiet and peaceful as they 
move on toward the sea. 

So our restless, perplexed lives roll in rocky 
channels a little way on the earth, and then pass 
out of sight, and it seems the end ; but it is not 
the end. Leaping through the dark cavern of 
the grave, they will reappear, fuller, deeper, 
grander, on the other side, vexed and broken no 
longer, but realizing all the peace, joy, and beauty 
of Christ ; and thus they will flow on forever. 



"£rje ILegenti Beautiful." 

There is a legend of a monk who was at his 
devotions, to whom was granted a blessed vision 
of the Master ; — 



148 « THE LEGEND BEAUTIFUL: 1 

" Then amid his exaltation, 
Loud the convent bell appalling, 
From its belfry calling, calling, 
Rang through court and corridor 
With persistent iteration 
He had never heard before." 

It was the hour when the blind and halt and 
lame, and all the beggars of the street, came to 
receive their dole of food, and this monk, now on 
his knees before the vision, was almoner that day. 
Should he go, or should he stay? Then a voice 

came, — 

" Do thy duty; that is best; 
Leave unto thy Lord the rest." 

So he arose and hastened away, did his service 
among the poor, and came again to find the vis- 
ion standing where he had left it. 

" Through the long hour intervening 
It had waited his return, 
And he felt his bosom burn, 
Comprehending all the meaning, 
When the Blessed Vision said, 
'Hadst thou stayed I must have fled.' " 

There is a lesson in this " Legend Beautiful " 
for us. The ecstasy of communion must never 
detain us from life's common task-work. We 
cannot keep the rapture of devotion if we neglect 
the duty of service. Worship is meant to fit us 
for better work, never to make us less ready for 
any tasks. 



THE POWER OF UNSELFISHNESS. 149 



When Alexander the Great was storming one 
of the cities of Malli, in India, having forced the 
gate, he made his way at the head of one of his 
columns to the citadel whither the besieged force 
had retreated. Impatient that the work of scaling 
the citadel's wall did not progress as fast as he 
desired, he seized a ladder, planted it himself, and 
was the first to ascend. Seeing the king alone, 
and in great danger, the soldiers made such a 
rush to the rescue that the scaling ladders broke 
beneath the over- weight, and Alexander was left 
in the midst of his enemies with only three 
soldiers, who had gotten up before the ladders 
broke. Nothing daunted, the great soldier leaped 
inside the wall, and stood like a tiger at bay, until 
he fell exhausted by the loss of blood. One of 
his comrades had been killed outright, but the 
other two locked their shields together over their 
king's prostrate body, and though dripping from 
many a wound, whirled their swords fiercely in 
their other hands, keeping off their enemies. 
Meanwhile, the Macedonians forced an entrance, 
and enraged beyond control at the supposed 
death of their king, they literally wiped the town 
from the face of the earth. 



150 THROUGH MISTS TO SUNLIGHT. 

Turn back the story's page, and you will find 
the reason for this devotion to their leader. 
During the pursuit of Darius, after marching four 
hundred miles in eleven days, when but sixty of 
his men could keep up with him, and all were dy- 
ing, it seemed, of thirst, a helmetful of water was 
handed to Alexander. He declined to drink one 
drop because there was not enough for all. This 
was the secret of the king's marvellous influence 
over his soldiers. There is no power of wealth 
or genius or position or fame, so strong as the 
power of unselfishness. 



Sfjrottgl) HHtsts to Sunltrjfjt. 

A preacher tells of a day in the Alps. The 
morning was cold, foggy, and threatening, and 
the people told him as he set out, that Rigi would 
not unveil her glory in such a day, and that he 
had better not climb the mountain. Yet he went 
on, through mist and rain. He met tourists com- 
ing down disappointed because they had seen 
nothing. They urged him to turn back, but he 
would not do it. Up and up he still climbed, and 
at last the fog suddenly cleared, and the whole 
system of glorious mountains revealed themselves. 



THE GLORIFYING OF LIFE. 151 

That is the story of all Christian life's mysteries 
— rain, fog, darkness, for a time, and then light 
and blue sky, and splendor of revelation. " What 
I do," said the Master, " thou knowest not now, 
but thou shalt know hereafter." Perfect, unques- 
tioning trust is the way to peace. Do not wait to 
see — do not ask to see — but believe in God and 
be at peace. 

SHje (Sfortfgtwf of 3Ltfe* 

Our Lord calls his people always to be helpers 
in blessing this world. We cannot do much. 
The best we can bring is a little of the common 
water of earth ; but if we bring that to him he 
can change it into the rich wine of heaven, which 
will bless weary and fainting ones. If we take 
simply what we have and use it as he commands, 
it will do good. Moses had only a rod in his 
hand, but with this he wrought great wonders. 
The disciples had only five barley-loaves, but 
these, touched by Christ's hand, made a feast for 
thousands. The common water carried by the 
servants, under the Master's benediction, became 
wine for the wedding. 

Christ passes the gifts of his love and grace 
through human hands to others. The redemp- 



152 FINDING ITS WINGS. 

tion is divine, wrought by Christ alone, but the 
priesthood that mediates it is human; human 
hands must distribute the blessings. Then we have 
the assurance that our most prosaic work leaves 
heavenly results. No labor is in vain which is 
wrought in the name of the Lord. Our common- 
est work amid life's trivialities, in business, in the 
household, which seems but like the carrying of 
water to be emptied out again, is transformed 
into radiant service like angel ministry, and 
leaves glorious results behind. The simplest 
things we do at Christ's bidding may become 
immortal blessings to other souls, or to our own. 



Jtntitng its SEE trigs. 

A gentleman had an eagle which had been 
caught when young, and brought up like a domes- 
tic fowl. At length the owner was going away 
over the sea, and decided to give the eagle its 
freedom. So he brought it out of the enclosed 
place, and it walked about, but seemed to have 
no thought whatever of flying away. The gentle- 
man was disappointed. At length he lifted the 
great bird to the garden wall. It stood there a 
few moments, and then looked up toward the sun. 



LOVE'S GREATEST GIFT. 153 

It seemed suddenly to remember that it was an 
eagle, whose home was amid the crags and the 
cliffs. A moment more and it lifted one wing, 
then the other, and was gone — soaring away into 
the blue of the sky. 

i\re not some of us like that eagle, shut up in 
the pen, using only its feet, not knowing it had 
wings, and that its true home was in the heavens ? 
Let us lift up our eyes to the hills, — there is our 
home. We were made for God. Let us try our 
soul's wings ; we were made to fly. It is a dese- 
cration of life to live amid the dust when we were 
created for flights in the blue heavens. 



* 



Hebe'* (greatest <§iit 

That was a touching story of sick-room min- 
istration which Mr. Gladstone gave in Parlia- 
ment, when announcing the death of the Princess 
Alice. Her little boy was ill with diphtheria, and 
the mother had been cautioned not to inhale the 
poisoned breath. The child was tossing in the 
delirium of fever. The Princess stood beside him 
and laid her hand on his brow to caress him. The 
touch cooled the fevered brain, and brought back 
the wandering soul from its wild delirium. He 



154 HOW A DAY MAY BE LOST. 

nestled a moment in his mother's lap ; then, 
throwing his arms around her neck, he whispered, 
" Mamma, kiss me." The instinct of mother- 
love was stronger than all the injunctions of phy- 
sicians, and she pressed her lips to the child's. 
The result was death. 

You say she was foolish. Yet where is the 
mother who would not have done the same? 
There may be peril in the sick-room for those 
who minister there for Christ ; but love stops at 
no peril, no sacrifice. There was peril in Christ's 
own mission to this world. In his marvellous 
love for us he put his lips to the poison of our 
sin — and died. 



P?ouj a Bag fHag 33t 3Lost 

All work is for God, in a certain sense. We 
do our business for him. We keep house for 
him. We drive the team, or run the engine, or 
keep the books, or sell the goods, or carry the 
mail, or sew the seams, or build the house, for 
him. Hence we must do honest and good work 
always, whatever our occupation. It is all for 
God's eye. Yet it is true that besides what we 
call our week-day work, all of us have specia] 



SEEING NOT THE DANGER. 155 

work to do for God, our " Father's business." 
We are in this world for Christ. 

Part of our duty, in addition to our secular 
affairs, is to do good in the ways that our divine 
Master may indicate, to perform the tasks of love 
and service that he may allot to us. All of our 
busy days, for example, we are to be gentle, kindly, 
patient, Christly, to every one whose life touches 
ours. In the heaviest pressure of our task- work 
we must never fail to do the kindness that we are 
called to do. We must never be too much occu- 
pied, in this world's affairs to do the part of the 
good Samaritan, if by our path we find a wounded 
brother. We must get into every one of our days 
some work for Christ. We all remember the 
story of the king who counted that day lost in 
which some other life had not been made 
happier. That day is lost in a Christian's life 
which has no record of blessing to the world and 
glory to God. 

Seeing Not tfje ©anger* 

There is a picture of an artist sitting on an 
ocean rock which had been left bare by the re- 
treating waves. There he sat, sketching on his 
canvas the beautiful things that filled his vision, — 



156 A SERMON TO THE BIRDS. 

sky, earth, and sea, — all unconscious that the 
tide had turned, and was rising, and had cut him 
off already from the shore, and was rapidly cover- 
ing the rock on which he sat. He was utterly 
oblivious of the tempest, the waves, the rising 
sea, so absorbed was he in his picture. Even the 
cries of his friends, as they shouted to him from 
the shore, were unheard. 

So men grow absorbed in this world, and per- 
ceive not the tides of judgment on-rolling, nor 
hear the calls of friends warning them of their 
peril. They are aware of no danger. They hear 
not the rushing of the angry waters. They see 
not the tokens of death's approach. They sit in 
unconsciousness of peril until the peril has swal- 
lowed them up. We are very foolish if we lose 
all that is worthy in life in the intensity of our 
quest after anything that is not abiding. 



21 Sermon to tlje Btrta. 

There is a beautiful legend of St. Francis 
which says that once as he was journeying he 
lifted his eyes and saw a multitude of birds. He 
said to his companions, " Wait for me here while 
I preach to my little sisters, the birds." The 



A SERMON TO THE BIRDS. 157 

birds gathered around him while he spoke to 
them words like these : " My little sisters, the 
birds, you owe much to God, your Creator, and 
ought to sing his praise at all times, and in all 
places, because he has given you liberty and the 
air to fly about in ; and though you neither spin 
nor sew, he has given you a covering for your 
bodies. He feeds you, though you neither sow 
nor reap. He has given you fountains and rivers 
in which to quench your thirst, and trees in which 
to build your nests. Beware, my little sisters, of 
the sin of ingratitude, and study always to praise 
the Lord." 

As he preached to them, the birds opened 
their beaks, stretched out their necks, flapped 
their wings, and bowed their heads to the earth. 
When the sermon was over, they flew up into the 
air, singing sweetly their song of praise, and dis- 
persed toward the four quarters of the world, as 
if to carry everywhere the words they had heard. 

Are we not better than the birds? Have we 
not more to be thankful for than they have? 
God is not the birds' Father ■ he is our Father. 
Christ did not die for the birds ; he did die for 
us. Let us, too, beware of the sin of ingratitude, 
and live to praise God. 



*J< 



158 POWER OF THE SWEETER SONG. 



^nlner of tfje Sfoeeter Song* 

We can fight the world's evil best, not by trying 
to shut it out of our life, or ward it off, but by hav- 
ing our heart so full of good that the power of the 
evil will be more than counterbalanced. In the 
old legend the sirens sang so sweetly that all who 
sailed near their home in the sea, were fascinated, 
and drawn to their shore only to be destroyed. 
Some tried to get safely past the enchanted spot 
by putting wax in their ears, so that they should 
not hear the luring, bewitching strains. But 
Orpheus, when he came, found a better way. He 
made music on his own ship which surpassed in 
sweetness that of the sirens, and thus their strains 
had no power over his men. 

The best way to break the charm of this world's 
alluring voices is not to try to shut out the music 
by stopping our ears, but to have our heart so 
filled with the sweeter music of the joy of Christ. 
Then temptation will not have power over us, 
because there is a mightier power within us. A 
deep love for Christ is the best antidote against 
the debasing influences of sin. Being filled with 
Christ is the best protection against evil. 



SO LOVED THAT HE GAVE, 159 



So 3Lorjeti tfjat P?e ©afo* 

A story is told of a child in Luther's time who 
had been taught to think of God only with dread, 
as of a terrible judge. In her stern home the 
name of God had been mentioned only to terrify 
and frighten her. But one day, in her father's 
printing-office, she picked up a scrap of paper, and 
found on it the first words of this verse, " God so 
loved the world that he gave " — The remaining 
words were torn off; but even in this mere frag- 
ment there was a new revelation to her. It told 
her that God loved the world, loved it well enough 
to give something. What he gave she did not 
know; but it was a great deal for her to know 
that he loved the world enough to give anything 
to it. The new thought brought great joy to her 
heart. It changed all her conception of God. 
She learned to think of him as one who loved 
her, as her friend, ready to give her rich gifts and 
all good, and this brightened and transformed her 
life. 

We have the whole wonderful verse. We know 
what God gave, — the most costly and precious gift 
in all the universe, — and the full revelation should 
fill us with unutterable gladness and joy. 



160 THE ONLY TRUE LIVING. 



Wqz ©nig Erue lifting. 

We cannot live a Christian life that will please 
Christ without sore cost to ourselves. It never 
can be an easy thing to be such a disciple as 
Christ wants you to be. An easy, self-indulgent 
life can never be a Christ-like life. It was not easy 
for Christ to redeem the world. From beginning 
to end of his earthly ministry he poured out his 
own precious life. The people thronged about 
him with their sins, their sorrows, and their needs, 
and virtue went out of him continually to heal 
them, to comfort them, to feed their heart-hunger. 
He utterly forgot himself and gave life and love 
without stint to every one that asked. At last he 
literally gave himself, emptying out his heart's 
blood to become life to dead souls. His suffer- 
ings were finished when he bowed his head on the 
cross. But now it is ours to suffer for him. We 
need never think that we can do anything to 
redeem this world, otherwise than as he wrought. 
Nothing but the giving of life will ever save the 
world. Nothing but love pouring out upon the 
sad and the sinful will comfort and regenerate 
them. It is ours, then, to perpetuate the self- 
sacrifice of Christ on this earth. Only in so far as 
we do this are we living a life that will please him. 



THE UNQUENCHABLE JOY. l6r 



Wqz SUnquenrijaile 3og. 

We ought to have a joy in our heart as God's 
children which nothing can ever quench. There 
is a beautiful story of a golden organ in a monas- 
tery. Once robbers besieged the monastery to 
rob it of its treasures. The monks carried the 
golden organ to a river near by, and sunk it in the 
water to keep it from the robbers' hands. At cer- 
tain periods — so the old legend runs — the organ 
would rise out of the river and give forth such 
ravishing music as was never elsewhere heard by 
mortal ears. 

Such an instrument is a truly thankful heart, 
one in which is the joy of the Lord. The floods 
may go over it, but it ever rises out of them and 
sings its sweet songs. Nothing can ever check 
its praise. It sings in the darkest night, its music 
rolling out into the gloom to cheer the weary pil- 
grim. A thankful heart always finds something 
good, even when all things seem evil. A thankful 
heart finds roses amid its thorns, and rejoices, 
when the unthankful heart finds thorns amid the 
roses, and complains. 



1 62 HEAVEN IS FAR BETTER. 



Pfcabm is Jar Better, 

The old rabbins say that when the famine came 
on in Egypt, and the storehouses were opened, 
Joseph threw the chaff of the grain upon the Nile, 
that it might float down upon the river and show 
those who lived below that there was an abun- 
dance of provision laid up for them, farther up 
the river. 

So the blessings of the divine grace which we 
enjoy in this world are little more than the husks 
of the heavenly good things, sent down on the 
river of divine grace, as revealings and foretastes 
and intimations of what is in store for us in 
heaven. The peace we get here is very sweet ; 
but it is only a faint image and prophecy of the 
peace of heaven. The joy the Christian has on 
earth is deep and rich ; but it is only the begin- 
ning of what he shall experience in glory. Heav- 
en's life is infinitely deeper and richer than this 
world's. The communion of earth is very precious 
as we turn over the Bible pages and ponder its 
words, or sit at the Lord's Table ; but it is only the 
shadow of the blessed and perfect fellowship of 
heaven, when we shall see Jesus as he is and be 
satisfied. 



BLESSED ARE THE HUNGRY. 163 



Wamtb are tfje $?tmgrg* 

Thorwaldsen wrought long, and with earnest 
enthusiasm, upon his statue of the Christ ; but when 
at last it was completed, a deep sadness settled over 
him. When asked the reason for this, he replied, 
" This is the first of my works with which I have 
ever felt satisfied. Till now my ideal has always 
been far beyond what I could execute ; but it is 
no longer so. I shall never have a great idea 
again." Satisfaction with his work was to him 
the sure indication that he had reached his best 
achievement. He would grow no more, because 
there was now no longing in his soul for anything 
better. He recognized this, and hence his pain 
of heart. 

In all life this law applies. Hunger is a mark 
of health, and the want of appetite proclaims 
disease. The cessation of the desire for knowl- 
edge shows that intellectual growth has ended. 
So, in spiritual life, unsatisfaction is the token of 
health. " Blessed are they which do hunger and 
thirst after righteousness." Blessed are the un- 
satisfied. Blessed are they who long for more 
and more. The mark of healthy spiritual life is 
an intense thirst for God, a deep, passionate 
yearning for closer, fuller, richer, more satisfying 



1 64 THE SERIOUSNESS OF LIVING. 

communion with God himself. The ideal Chris- 
tian life is one of insatiable thirst, of quenchless 
yearning, of divine discontent, wooed ever on by 
visions of new life, new joy, new attainment. The 
best thing in us is never what we are, what we 
have already reached, but the longing for that 
which is yet higher and better. 



* 



2Hjc Seriousness of Etfamg. 

Some people seem never to have any serious 
thought of life. They think only of amusement, 
and never get beyond the airy surface of things. 
But to one who thinks deeply, life is not all a round 
of empty pleasure. A traveller who tarried seve- 
ral days at Antwerp, describes the effect which the 
bells in the great tower had upon him. Every 
quarter hour they rang out on the air their sweet 
notes, in soft melody, which fell like a delicious 
rain of music dropping from the heavens, as 
tender and holy as the song of angels. Then at 
the full hour, amid their shower of liquid notes of 
silver, there rang out the solemn strokes of the 
great bell, with iron tongue, deep and heavy ; and 
these heavy tones filled him with a feeling of awe. 
As he listened, hour after hour, to the chime, the 



NOT DESTROYED, BUT BEAUTIFIED. 165 

tender melody of the smaller, sweeter bells re- 
minded him of the mercy and love of God, and the 
solemn undertones that broke on his ear at the 
end of each full hour, spoke of the awful themes 
of justice, judgment, eternity. 

So it is that every thoughtful person is im- 
pressed in reading the Scriptures. Their usual 
tone is mercy. Love rings everywhere, like the 
notes of angels' songs. But here and there, amid 
the words of divine tenderness, comes some deep 
note, telling of justice, of wrath against sin, of the 
awful judgment day. It is the same in life. The 
flow of the common days is gladness. There is 
music everywhere. Flowers bloom. Love lights 
its lamp in our path. Then suddenly there breaks 
in, amid the merry laughter, a tone deep and 
solemn, which fills us with awe. Life is not all 
gayety. Even now its undertone is serious. We 
should be thoughtful. Eternity lies close to time. 
The momentous things of judgment are hidden 
only by a thin veil of mist. 



fiat ©estrones, but JSeauttfirt. 

In a lovely Swiss valley there is a cascade 
which is caught by the swift winds as it pours over 
the edge of the rock, and scattered so that the 



1 66 BUILDING BEYOND THE SKIES. 

falling stream is lost for the time, and only a 
wreath of whirling spray is seen in the air. But 
farther down the valley the stream gathers itself 
back again, and pours along in full current, in 
quiet peace, as if it had never been so rudely 
smitten by the wind. Even the blast that scatters 
it for a time, and seems to destroy it altogether, 
really makes it all the lovelier as it whirls its crystal 
drops into the air. hi no other point in all its 
course is the stream so beautiful. 

There are Christian lives that seem to be utterly 
destroyed by some great and sore trial ; but be- 
yond the sorrow they move on again in calmer, 
fuller strength, not destroyed, not a particle of 
their real life wasted. And in the trial itself, 
through the grace of Christ, their character shines 
out in richer lustre and rarer splendor than ever 
in the days when their hearts were fullest of joy 
and gladness. 



Builtitng 33njonti tfje &kizz. 

In India they tell the story of the Golden 
Palace. Sultan Ahmed was a great king. lie 
sent Yakoob, the most skilful of his builders, with 
vast sums of money, to erect in the mountains of 
snow the most splendid palace ever seen. Yakoob 



BUILDING BEYOND THE SKIES. 167 

went to the place, and found a great famine among 
the people, and many of them dying. He took 
all his own money, and the money given him by 
the king, to build the palace, and gave it to feed 
the starving people. 

Ahmed came at length to see his palace and 
there was none there. He sent for Yakoob and 
learned his story, but was very angry and cast 
him into prison. " To-morrow thou shalt die," 
he said, " for thou hast robbed the king." But 
that night Ahmed had a dream. There came to 
him one who said : " Follow me." Up from the 
earth they soared, until they were at heaven's gate. 
They entered, and lo ! there stood a palace of 
pure gold, more brilliant than the sun, and vaster 
far than any palace of earth. 

" What palace is this?" asked Ahmed, and his 
guide answered : "This is the palace of Merciful 
Deeds, built for thee by Yakoob the wise. Its 
glory shall endure when all earth's things have 
passed away." Then the king understood that 
Yakoob had done most wisely with his money. 

This story has its lesson of truth. The life 
thrown away on earth for Christ, spent in his 
cause, wasted in loving service for him, though it 
seems to leave no monument, though it receives 
no honor in this world, is laying up treasure, 
honor, reward, blessedness, in the unseen world. 



168 GOD WANTS OUR BEST. 



©0i Emants ©ur Best. 

Christ never asks for anything we cannot do. 
But let us not forget that he always does expect 
and require of each of us the best we can do. 
The faithfulness Christ wants and approves im- 
plies the doing of all our work, our business, our 
trade, our daily toil, as well as we can. Let no one 
think that religion does not apply to private life. 
It applies to the way you do your most common 
work just as really as to your praying and keeping 
of the commandments. Whatever your duty is, 
you cannot be altogether faithful to God unless 
you do your best. To slur any task is to do God's 
work badly. To neglect it is to rob God. The 
universe is not quite complete without your work 
well done, however small that work may be. 

The faithfulness which Christ requires must 
reach also to everything we do. It takes in the 
way the child gets his lessons and recites them, 
the way the dressmaker and the tailor sew their 
seams, the way the blacksmith welds the iron and 
shoes the horse, the way the plumber puts in his 
pipes, the way the carpenter builds the house, the 
way the clerk represents the goods, and measures 
or weighs them. How soon it would put a stop 
to all dishonesty, all fraud, all skimping, all false 



MAN'S TWO GUARDIAN ANGELS. 169 

weights and measures, all shams, all neglects of 
duty, if this lesson were only learned and practised 
everywhere ! 

IHan's Sftoo ©uartitan Angels, 

The Koran says that two angels guard every 
man on the earth, one watching on each side 
of him. When at night he sleeps, the angels 
fly up to heaven with a written report of all his 
words and actions during the day. The one on 
his right tells of every good thing he has done, 
and it is recorded at once and repeated ten times, 
lest some item may be lost or omitted from the 
account. But when the angel on his left tells of 
a sinful thing, the angel on his right says, " For- 
bear to record that for seven hours : peradventure, 
as the man wakes and thinks in the quiet hours, 
he may be sorry for it, and repent and pray and 
obtain forgiveness." 

This is only a fancy, and yet it really is a true 
representation of the way in which God regards 
our lives. He is slow to see our sins or to write 
them down against us. He delights in mercy. 
The lesson is for us, too, for we are to repeat in 
our lives as God's children something, at least, of 
his patience. The song of forgiveness and for- 






170 FROM DESERT TO GARDEN. 

bearance which he sings into our hearts we ought 
to echo forth again. We, too, should be quick to 
note and remember all the good things of others, 
and slow to mark or record the wrong that we 
see in them. 

jFrom Bcscrt to (Sartieru 

In travelling to California we passed over hun- 
dreds of miles of the dreariest desert. The hot 
sands glowed and burned under the sun's rays. 
Rain scarcely ever falls, and nothing grows on the 
arid wastes save low, straggling sage bush and 
wild cacti. On and on our train rolled, hour 
after hour, amid alkali dust and unrelieved deso- 
lation. At length, however, we began to pass 
into the first fringes of luxuriance, and soon we 
were in the midst of the garden splendors of 
Southern California, — flowers, fragrance, and fruit, 
masses of roses and flowers of all kinds, orange 
groves, clumps of ornamental trees, vineyards, 
palms. In an hour we had left behind us the 
desert of the plains, and had entered the richest 
garden luxuriance of the world. 

Is it not so with many a Christian life in leav- 
ing this world for heaven? Here are struggles, 
strifes, trials, bitter tears, disappointments, injus- 



GETTING READY FOR DARK PATHS. 171 

rices, wrongs, hardships and cares. Life seems all 
desert to these toilers. No springs of water burst 
up in the way to refresh them. Nothing grows 
in the hot fields to be food for their hunger. 

What must heaven be to these weary ones, 
when they enter it, leaving forever behind them 
the dreary desolation of this world? In an hour 
they will pass from the heat, strife, and bitterness 
of earthly sorrow into the blessedness, the perfect 
love, the unbroken joy of heaven. 



(Setting 3ftearjg for .Uatft Patfjg?* 

Before conducting them into dark catacombs, 
or caverns, the guides put lamps into the tourists' 
hands. The pale beams may seem useless while 
they walk in the full blaze of noonday ; but when 
they enter the darkness of the cave, the splendor 
of daylight quickly fades out, and then the lamp's 
flame begins to shine brightly, and the visitors soon 
see how valuable their lamps are and how neces- 
sary. Without them they would be lost in the 
thick gloom and in the inextricable mazes. 

We are wise if we get into our hearts in the 
days of brightness the lamps of promise and of 
comfort. Then when grief or trial comes, and 



172 WHEN NO ONE IS WATCHING. 

the sun of earthly joy goes down, these hidden 
lights will shine like the stars that come out in 
the sky when the day is over. We are wise if we 
take whatever lamps of gladness God puts into 
our hands as we go along through the sunny ways. 
We may not see their need at the time, but to- 
morrow these may be the only lights we shall 
have to guide us in safety through ways of peril 
or death. 



aJSrjen No ©ne fe OTatrijtng. 

A flower blooms no more sweetly because it 
is gazed at by an admiring crowd. It would be 
just as lovely if it grew in the depths of a great 
forest where no eye ever saw it. The stars look 
down with as much brilliancy into the desert, 
where no one looks up at them, as into the streets 
of the great city where thousands behold them. 
The sea breaks with as much majesty on an unin- 
habited shore as where its waves kiss the feet of 
multitudes. So it is in all true Christian life and 
work. When one is doing any fine thing, and 
shows by his air that he is conscious of it, more 
than half the fineness is gone from the perform- 
ance. When a man knows that he is living a 
life that is very beautiful in its service and sacri- 



DARKENING BY OUR OWN SHADOW. 173 

fice, when he is conscious that he is a winsome 
Christian, much of the glory is gone from his life. 
We should live just as sweetly and beautifully 
when no one is looking upon us to see our deed 
and praise our life, as when all the world is be- 
holding. The eye of God is ever upon us, and it 
is his approval and commendation that we should 
always seek to deserve. 



©arfenmg bg ©ur ©ton Stfjatiofo, 

It is said of the great sculptor, Michael Angelo, 
that when at work he wore over his forehead, fas- 
tened on his cap, a little lamp, in order that no 
shadow of himself might fall upon his work. We 
need to take care that no shadows of ourselves, of 
our pride, our ambition, our self-seeking, shall fall 
upon our work for Christ. To seek to win souls 
that we ourselves may have the glory of success 
in Christian work, is to dim and darken the beauty 
of all we do, and also to make ourselves vessels 
unmeet for the Master's use. We are ready for 
this most sacred of all ministries only when we are 
content to be nothing that Christ may be all in all. 



* 



174 APPRECIATION TOO LATE. 



appreciation 2Coo Slate* 

It is not enough to love others ; we must let 
them know that we love them. We must do it, 
too, before it is too late. Some people wait till 
the need is past, and then come up with their 
kindness. When the neighbor is well again they 
call to say how sorry they are he has been sick. 
When he has gotten through his sore trial, they 
come with congratulations. But the time to help 
is when your friend is in the floods, not when he 
has gotten out to shore and is safe. The time for 
friendship is in the friend's adversity, when evil 
tongues malign him, and not when he has gotten 
vindication and stands honored even by strangers. 

Then there are those who wait till death has 
come before they begin to speak their words of 
love. There are many who say their first truly 
generous words of others when the others lie in 
the coffin. They then bring flowers, although 
they never gave a flower when their friends were 
alive. Gentle things that lie in the heart and in 
the tongue for many years unexpressed, first find 
utterance in death's sadness. But it is too late 
then. 

" Over the coffin pitiful we stand, 
And place a rose within the helpless hand 



REFLECTING THE DIVINE BEAUTY. 175 

That yesterday, mayhap, we would not see, 
When it was meekly offered. On the heart, 
That often ached for an approving word, 
We lay forget-me-nots. We turn away, 
And find the world is colder for the loss 
Of this so faulty and so loving one. 

"Think of that moment, ye who reckon close 
With love, so much for every gentle thought, — 
The moment when love's richest gifts are naught; 
When a pale flower, upon a pulseless breast, 
Like your regret, exhales its sweets in vain." 



* 



Reflecting trje IBibint JJeautjj* 

We look upon the glory of the Lord, and as we 
gaze the glory streams upon us, and there is an 
image of Christ mirrored or reflected in us. Then 
others, looking upon us, see the image of Christ 
in our lives. You look into a little pool of still 
water at night, and see the stars in it, or by day, 
and see the blue sky and the heavens. So you 
look upon Christ in loving faith and adoration, 
and his glory shines down into your soul. Then 
your neighbors or your friends about you, look at 
you, see your character, watch your conduct, 
observe your disposition and temper, and all the 
play of your life ; and, as they behohl you, they 



176 THE BEAUTY OF GOD'S WILL. 

perceive the image of Christ in you. You arej:he 
mirror, and in you men see the beauty and the 
glory of the Lord. 



m)t Beauts *f &&'* HKfll. 

God's will is always the best : it is always divine 
love. A stricken wife, standing beside the coffin 
of her noble husband, said to a friend : " There 
lies my husband, my only earthly support, my 
most faithful human friend, one who has never 
once failed me ; but I must not forget that there 
lies also the will of God, and that that will is per- 
fect love." 

She was right. It was only by faith that she 
saw the good and the blessedness in what appeared 
to her the wreck of all her happiness. But truly 
the good and the blessedness are in every dark 
providence which comes into the life of God's 
child. We need to remember always that our 
Father never means us harm in anything he 
does or permits. His assurance is, " I know the 
thoughts that I think toward you . . . thoughts of 
peace." His will for us is always love, though it 
have the form of darkness and pain. 



THE EMBLEM OF PEACE. 177 



2Hje lEmblem of Peace* 

A great many tender thoughts cluster around 
the dove. It was a dove that the very poor were 
permitted to bring to the altar as an offering, as a 
substitute for a more costly animal. The appear- 
ance of the dove was one of the harbingers, or 
prophecies, of coming spring. The dove was 
always remembered by the Jews, in connection 
with the abatement of the waters of the deluge, 
when it returned to the ark bearing the olive leaf; 
and it, as well as the olive branch, has become 
among all Christian nations an emblem of peace. 
The dove was also referred to by Christ as a 
symbol of gentleness and harmlessness. 

All these associations made the dove a most 
fitting emblematic form for the Holy Spirit to 
assume, when descending upon Christ. For Jesus 
came to be a sacrifice for all, even the poorest. 
He came as the spring comes, bringing life to a 
dead world. He came bringing a message of 
peace from heaven to every one who will open 
his heart to him. And he is like the dove in 
gentleness and harmlessness. 

It is this same holy dove that must descend 
upon us, if the kingdom of heaven is truly to begin 
in our hearts. Until the Holy Spirit has been 



178 THE MARKS OF THE LORD JESUS. 

given to us, and received by us, there is no life in 
our souls, and no power in us for work ; but the 
divine anointing is promised to all who truly 
consecrate themselves to Christ, and believe on 
him. No vision of cloven heavens and descend- 
ing dove appears to human eyes ; but above every 
scene of holy devotement to Christ this blessed 
reality hangs. 

3Hje iUSarfts of tfje 3Lortr 3m*. 

After a patriotic war it is not the soldiers that 
return unhurt, unscarred, who are looked upon 
with the highest honor, but those who bear the 
marks of battle. When an army marches back 
from a victorious field, it is not the bright, clean, 
untorn flag that is most wildly cheered, but the 
flag that is pierced, riddled, and torn by the shot 
and shell of many a battle. 

So, in the home-coming in glory, it will not be 
the man who bears the fewest marks of suffering and 
struggle, and the fewest scars of wounds received 
in Christ's service, who will be welcomed with the 
greatest joy, but the man who carries the marks 
of the sorest conflicts, and the greatest sufferings 
for the honor of his Lord and for his kingdom. 
Old war veterans are not ashamed of their scars ; 



HE KNOWS HIS OWN. 179 

they are insignia of honor ; they tell of wounds 
received in battling for their country. In heaven 
the soldier of Christ will not be ashamed of the 
scars he has gotten in his warfare for his Lord on 
the earth ; his crown will be all the brighter for 
them. Then we shall see that it has been no 
misfortune that we have had to fight sore battles 
on this earth. 



The" obscurest Christian, hidden away in the 
lowliest or most neglected spot, will not be over- 
looked by the angels when they come to gather 
in Christ's little ones. Some years ago a ship 
went down on the British coast, and all on board 
were lost. None of the bodies of those who 
had perished were found, save that of an infant, 
which was washed ashore among the wreckage. 
The kindly people of the village, who picked it 
up, buried the body, and having no clue to the 
baby's name, put on the little stone simply, " God 
knows." When the angels come, they will know 
whose body it is, and will not pass it by. 

So will they know all Christ's little ones. The 
place where they sleep is well marked for the 
heavenly watchers. It will make no difference, 



180 THE CHIMES OF ST. NICHOLAS. 

either, that many of them die long before Christ 
himself comes again. These will miss nothing. 
They will be called up in time to witness all the 
glory and share in all the triumph. So Paul tells 
us that we should not sorrow for the Christian 
dead, as those who have no hope, for that " them 
also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring 
with him " ; and " the dead in Christ shall rise 
first ; then we that are alive, that are left, shall 
together with them be caught up in the clouds, 
to meet the Lord in the air." There is only one 
thing that we need to concern ourselves about — 
that we are indeed of those who have accepted 
Christ, and have been faithful to him in this life. 
It will not matter, in that day, whether we have 
been rich or poor, famous among men, or un- 
known and overlooked ; the only determining 
element in life will be, whether or not we have 
belonged to Christ. 

A visitor to Amsterdam wished to hear the 
wonderful music of the chimes of St. Nicholas, 
and went up into the tower of the church to hear 
it. There he found a man with wooden gloves on 
his hands, pounding on a keyboard. All he could 



THE CHIMES OF ST. NICHOLAS. 181 

hear was the clanging of the keys when struck by 
the wooden gloves, and the harsh, deafening noise 
of the bells close over his head. He wondered 
why people talked of the marvellous chimes of St. 
Nicholas. To his ear there was no music in them, 
nothing but terrible clatter and clanging. Yet, all 
the while, there floated out over and beyond the 
city the most entrancing music. Men in the 
fields paused in their work to listen, and were 
made glad. People in their homes, and travellers 
on the highway, were thrilled by the marvellous 
bell-notes that fell from the tower. 

There are many lives which to those who 
dwell close beside them seem to make no music. 
They pour out their strength in hard toil. They 
are shut up in narrow spheres. They dwell amid 
the noise and clatter of common task-work. 
They think themselves that they are not of any 
use, that no blessing goes out from their life. 
They never dream that sweet music is made 
anywhere in the world by their noisy hammering. 
But out over the world, where the influence goes 
from their work and character, human lives are 
blessed, and weary ones hear, with gladness, sweet, 
comforting music. Then away off in heaven, 
where angels listen to earth's melody, entrancing 
strains are heard. 



1 82 THE PERIL OF LITTLE SINS. 



£I)c Peril of ILtttle &inz. 

It does not take a rifle-ball to destroy a life. 
Men have died of pin-wounds. Some shepherds 
once saw an eagle soar out from a crag. It flew 
majestically far up into the sky, but by and by be- 
came unsteady in its motions, and began to waver 
in its flight. At length one wing drooped and 
then the other, and the poor bird struggled vainly 
for a moment, and then fell swiftly to the ground. 
The shepherds sought the fallen bird, and found 
that a little serpent had fastened itself upon it 
while it rested on the crag. The eagle did not 
know that the serpent was there. But the reptile 
gnawed in through the feathers, and while the 
proud monarch was sweeping through the air, 
the serpent's fangs were thrust into its flesh, and 
the eagle came reeling down into the dust. 

This illustrates the story of many a human life. 
For a time the promise is great ; then suddenly it 
struggles and falls. Some secret sin has long been 
eating its way to the heart, and at last the proud 
life lies soiled and dishonored in the dust. We 
need to be ever on our watch against these 
treacherous and insidious perils, these little, se- 
cret sins, which, unperceived, work death in the 
soul. 



TILL THE SUN GOES DOWN. 183 



2KII % Sim (goes ©ota. 

A soldier lay wounded on a hard-fought field. 
The roar of the battle had died away, and he rested 
in the deathly stillness of its aftermath. Off over 
the field flickered the lanterns of the survivors, 
searching for wounded ones who might be carried 
away and saved. This poor soldier watched, un- 
able to turn or to speak, as the lanterns drew 
near. Then a light flashed in his face and the 
surgeon bent over him, shook his head, and was 
gone. By and by the party came back, and again 
the kindly surgeon bent over him. " I believe if 
this poor fellow lives till sundown to-morrow, he 
will get well." In a moment the surgeon was 
gone, but he had put a great hope in the soldier's 
heart. All night the words kept repeating them- 
selves — "If I live till sundown I shall get well." 
He turned his head to the east to watch for the 
dawn. At last the stars went out, the east quivered 
with radiance, and the sun arose. Intently his eye 
followed the orb of day. He was growing weaker 
— could he live till sundown? He thought of 
his home. " If I live till sundown, I shall see it 
again. I will walk down the shady lane. I will 
drink again at the old mossy spring." 

He thought of his wife who had put her hand 



1 84 TILL THE SUN GOES DOWN. 

shyly in his, and had brought sweetness to his life. 
" If I live till sundown, I shall look once more into 
her deep, loving eyes." He thought of the little 
children, that clambered on his knees, and tangled 
their little hands in his heart-strings. " If I live 
till sundown, they will again find my parched lips 
with their warm kisses, and their fingers shall run 
once more over my face." 

Then he thought of the old mother who 
gathered these children about her, and breathed 
her old heart afresh in their brightness, that she 
might live till her big boy came home. " If I live 
till sundown, I shall see her again, and I will rest 
my head at its old place on her knees, and weep 
away the memory of this desolate night." 

And the Son of God who had died for men, 
bending down from the stars, put the hand that 
had been nailed to the cross on the ebbing life, 
and held on the staunch until the sun went down 
and the stars came out, and shone down into the 
brave man's heart, and blurred in his glistening 
eyes. And the surgeon came again, and he was 
taken from death to life. 

There are human hearts that are sorely wounded 
by sin, and by the rejection of the love of Christ, 
and the Son of God bends down from the stars, 
and the hand that was nailed on the cross lifts the 
latch, and the door of salvation is opened ; and 



THE BABY IN THE FLOOD. 185 

the voice that is so tender sends its invitation to 
every heart in the darkness outside the door : 
" Enter, enter now, into blessedness and peace. 
Come unto me, and I will give you rest." 



2Hje JSabg in tfje jFIocto, 

In one of the great floods in the West, when 
the river broadened till it spread over the whole 
valley, and when trees and fences and crops and 
buildings were swept away, some men in a boat 
found among the drift and wreckage, in the mid- 
dle of the wide stream, borne along in the wild 
torrent, a baby's cradle floating. They made 
their way to it, and there in the cradle, warmly 
wrapped up in its blankets, lay the baby, sleeping 
as sweetly as ever it had slept in the mother's 
arms. 

So in all this world's wild turbulence, amid its 
enmities, its temptations, its trials and sorrows, 
its wants and dangers, its strifes and conflicts, 
every child of God may be kept in perfect peace. 
Wherever he is, whatever his circumstances, he is 
really lying on the bosom of Jesus. 



* 



1 86 UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD. 



ilHirrortng tjje J3tbhu ILobe* 

A single dew-drop, as it quivers on a leaf on a 
June morning, mirrors and reflects the whole blue 
sky ; yet what a miniature picture it gives of that 
vast expanse of heaven ! So human fatherhood 
is a dew-drop which mirrors the divine father- 
hood ; but it is only a picture compressed into 
minutest size, and with only dim, broken reflec- 
tion of a glorious love which is infinite in its 
length and breadth and height and depth. 



Sanspottrt jFrom tijc OTorllx 

You have seen a lily floating in the black, 
sullied waters of a foul bog in the country. All 
about it are foulness and impurity ; but amid all 
the vileness the lily is pure as the white snow- 
flakes that fall from the winter clouds. It floats 
on the surface of the stained waters, but never 
takes a stain. It ever holds up its pure face 
toward God's blue sky, and pours its fragrance 
all about it, like the incense from the censer of a 
yestal priestess. So it is possible for a true 



FOR THE MASTER'S SAKE. 187 

woman to live in this sinful world, keeping her 
soul unsullied, and breathing out the fragrance of 
love. 



jpor tjje JWaster'g £>akz. 

It is said that Leonardi da Vinci, while still a 
pupil, and before his genius burst into beauty and 
brilliancy, received a special inspiration and de- 
velopment in the following way : His old and 
famous master, feeling obliged to suspend his own 
labors by his increasing infirmities, bade Da Vinci 
complete for him a picture which he had begun, 
and to do his best. The young man had such a 
reverence for his master's skill that he shrank from 
the task ; but to every objection the artist replied 
simply, " Do your best." At last Da Vinci trem- 
blingly seized the brush, and kneeling before the 
easel, prayed : " It is for the sake of my beloved 
master that I implore skill and power for this 
undertaking." As he proceeded his hand grew 
steady, his eye awoke with slumbering genius ; he 
forgot himself and was filled with enthusiasm for 
his work. When all was done, his master was 
borne into the studio on his couch to pass judg- 
ment on the result. It was a triumph of art on 



1 88 THE CHOICE THAT DECIDES DESTINY. 

which his eye fell, and, throwing his arms about 
the young artist, he exclaimed, " My son, I paint 
no more ! " 

So should it be with the young teacher who 
stands in awe of the work to which his Master 
calls him. Let him kneel reverently before the 
task assigned to him, and pray " for the beloved 
Master's sake " for skill and power ; and then let 
him " do his best." 



SHje (Rfytitz tfjat ©rcftcs ©csting. 

PizARRO,in his earlier attempts to conquer Peru, 
came to a time when all his followers were about 
to desert him. Drawing his sword he traced a 
line with it from east to west. Then turning 
toward the south, " Friends and comrades," he 
said, " on that side are toil, hunger, nakedness, 
the drenching storm, desertion, death ; on this 
side are ease and pleasure. There lies Peru, with 
all its riches ; here Panama with its poverty. 
Choose, each man, as becomes a brave Castilian. 
For my part, I go to the south." 

So saying, he stepped across the line. One 
after another, his men followed him. This was 
the crisis of Pizarro's fate. Christ stands among 



THE STORY OF A LILY. 189 

us bidding us to choose whether we will follow 
him, not knowing whither or to what ; or whether 
we will withdraw ourselves from his company 
and take ease and self. Choose ye whom ye 
will serve. 



m}t Stors of a 3LtIg- 

In the bottom of a lake a slender blade of green 
pushed its way up through the ooze and mud. 
By and by it touched the surface. The sunshine 
warmed it and its leaves spread out on the water. 
Then came a fair, sweet morning when the bud 
opened and became a flower and "lay on the 
lake as white and stainless as a baby's soul, and 
the breath of it was sweeter than any perfume." 

The flower was very glad, but soon it began to 
sigh : " I am very sweet and beautiful, but why 
am I out in this lonely place where no one comes 
to see me and admire me ? " Then that very day 
a poet came and saw the lily, and was inspired by 
it to write a sweet song which went forth in a 
book and sang itself into many a heart. Next 
day an artist came that way, and when he saw the 
flower he made a sketch of it, and in his studio 
in the city he painted it, and hundreds saw his 



190 THE STORY OF A LILY. 

picture and caught a thought of purity from it. 
The lily was blessing the world, though it lay 
there in such obscurity. 

Still it sighed, " I am of no use here, though I 
am so lovely. Ugly weeds sometimes heal the 
sick, but I, am doing no good." Then another 
visitor came that way. He was neither poet nor 
artist, but in his eyes there was a soft tenderness 
which told of a loving heart. He bent down and 
plucked the lily. A shudder ran through it as it 
felt itself torn up by the root, and lifted out of the 
water, and it fainted away. By and by it awoke, 
and now it was in a long, narrow room with rows 
of beds, and in every bed a sick child. As the 
flower opened, the children's eyes turned toward 
it in wonder and its perfume poured out and 
filled the ward. The lily at last had found its 
place of usefulness and blessing through sacrifice. 
It had been torn up by the roots to become a 
blessing in the children's ward. 

You understand my little parable. Many a 
life grows up in some obscure place and sighs 
because of the gloom and the hard circumstances. 
But at length it bursts into beauty, overcoming 
the hindrances, like the lily on the water. Yet 
it sighs because no one sees its loveliness. It 
longs to be of use. Then one catches a glimpse 
of the fair young life and goes away to live more 



ONLY A BIT OF GLASS. 191 

purely, more unselfishly. Still rises from the 
heart the sigh to do some larger work. God 
hears the sigh, and the lovely life is transplanted 
— perhaps into some place of service where the 
beauty will be a benediction to weary ones and 
where the gentle hands will minister to pain or 
sorrow ; or perhaps to a place where the alabaster 
box of love must needs be broken to fill a home 
or a community with its fragrance. There are 
many consecrated lives whose sigh and prayer for 
usefulness have led to missions of self-sacrifice. 



©nig a 33tt of ©lass. 

One of the most wonderful diamonds in the 
world is the Koh-i-noor, or Mountain of Light. 
It now belongs to England, but came from India. 
The gem was put into the hands of Lord John 
Lawrence for safe keeping. Half unconsciously, 
Lord John thrust the diamond, which lay in a 
little box, into his waistcoat pocket. Burdened 
with many cares, he forgot all about the precious 
stone. Six months afterward there came a mes- 
sage from the Queen ordering that the great jewel 
be sent to her at once. Then Lord John reraera- 



192 ONLY A BIT OF GLASS. 

bered that the gem had been given to him — also 
his carelessness. Summoning his native servant, 
he asked him if he had found a little parcel some 
months before in one of his pockets. With great 
anxiety Lord John awaited the man's answer. 
" Yes, Sahib, I found it and put it in one of your 
boxes." Lord John bade him bring it, and the 
servant brought the little box. Fold after fold 
of wrappings was removed, and there lay the 
wondrous diamond shining like the sun. 

The old servant was utterly unconscious of the 
immense treasure he held in his hands. " There 
is nothing here, Sahib, but a bit of glass," he 
said. Then Lord John told him of its value and 
most carefully was the gem guarded until the 
Queen herself laid it among the jewels of her 
crown. 

There is in the possession of each one of us a 
far more precious and costly gem than the Koh-i- 
noor. What are we doing with it? Are we 
treating it as if it were of no value? Are we, 
like Lord John, wrapping it up in the folds of 
neglect and overlooking it altogether, while we 
are busy with other things? Are we despising 
the redemption which it cost Christ so much to 
prepare? Are we neglecting this precious pearl 
of eternal life ? 



THE CONTRACTING WALLS. 193 



Into tfje iWarftrilotig 3Ltjj|jk 

In those terrible days when the devastating 
tread of Napoleon was causing all Europe to 
tremble, leaving blight and woe and humiliation 
everywhere, — besides those slain in battle, there 
were countless noble hearts that broke with shame 
and sorrow. Among others was the heart of the 
lovely Queen of King William, of Germany. In 
the environs of Berlin she sleeps, in a tomb of 
peculiar construction, built by her husband. It 
stands alone in a forest. As you enter, the light 
is dim and sombre ; but at the farther end the 
sunbeams pour in full splendor through trans- 
parent windows. The gloom and shadow at the 
entrance represents the darkness that lies about 
the opening of death's vale ; the radiance of the 
pure golden sunlight, as you pass through, rep- 
resents the brightness of the glory of the blessed 
life into which death ushers the Christian. 



2Hje ffiontracttruj fflKalte, 

There was a mediaeval dungeon of singular 
construction. When the prisoner first entered it, 



194 THE CONTRACTING WALLS. 

it seemed very bright and pleasant. It had a 
cheerful appearance. But in three or four days 
he saw that the walls, which were of iron, were 
slowly contracting. On oiled hinges and in silent 
grooves the metal plates were ever drawing nearer 
and nearer to each other. By and by he could 
hardly breathe. Then the place was too small 
for him to lie down in it. Next day there was 
only room for him to stand. Now he put his 
hands frantically against the iron walls to keep 
them from crushing him. But all in vain. The 
walls silently and remorselessly closed upon him. 

Your years are the walls of just such a prison. 
They are bright and beautiful to you. But each 
day the prison is contracting, its walls are narrow- 
ing around you. Every hour that passes with its 
opportunity gives you one chance less to gain 
eternal life. With every pulse-beat the iron walls 
draw closer and closer around your soul. 

Every voice of mercy, every striving of the Spirit, 
is an angel at the gate of your narrowing prison, 
come to open the door that you may escape. 
The only refuge from this prison is Christ. 
Without Christ life means nothing but illusion 
and disappointment, ending in darkness and 
death. Christ is the door into liberty, into 
blessedness, into joy, into all that is noble and 
divine. 



UNRECOGNIZED OPPORTUNITIES. 195 



SJnrecogmjeti ©pporttmttteg* 

There is a legend of an artist who long sought 
for a piece of sandal wood out of which to carve 
a Madonna. At last he was about to give up in 
despair, leaving the vision of his life unrealized, 
when in a dream he was bidden to shape the 
figure from a block of oak wood which was 
destined for the fire. Obeying the command, 
he produced from the log of common firewood 
a masterpiece. 

In like manner many people wait for great and 
brilliant opportunities for doing the good things, 
the beautiful things, of which they dream, while 
through all the common days the very opportuni- 
ties they require for such deeds lie close to them, 
in the simplest and most familiar passing events. 
They wait to find sandal wood out of which to 
carve Madonnas, while far more lovely Madonnas 
than they dream of are hidden in the common 
logs of oak which they burn in the open fireplace 
or spurn with their feet in the wood- yard. 



196 LITTLE FAITHFULNESSES. 



Cfje Importance oi 3LtttIe Jattfjfutases* 

Stories are told of a child finding a little leak 
in the dike that shuts off the sea from Holland, 
and stopping it with his hand till help could come, 
staying there all the night, holding back the floods 
with his little white hand. It was but a tiny, 
trickling stream that he held back ; yet, if he had 
not done it, it soon would have become a torrent, 
and before morning the sea would have swept 
over the land, submerging fields, homes, and 
cities. Between the sea and all this devastation 
there was but a boy's hand. Had the child failed, 
the floods would have rolled in with their remorse- 
less ruin. We understand how important it was 
that that boy should be faithful to his duty, since 
he was the only one God had that night to save 
Holland. 

But do you know that your life may not stand 
any day, and be all that stands, between some 
great flood of moral ruin and broad fair fields of 
beauty ? Do you know that your failure in your 
lowly place and duty may not let in a sea of 
disaster which shall sweep away human hopes and 
joys and human souls ? The humblest of us dare 
not fail, for our one life is all God has at the point 
where we stand. 



THE OLD SMITH AND THE STORM. 197 



2Hje ©Hi Smttfj ant tije Storm. 

Men said the old smith was foolishly careful as 
he wrought on the great chain he was making in 
his dingy shop in the heart of the great city. 
But he heeded not their words, and only wrought 
with greater painstaking. Link after link he fash- 
ioned, and at last the chain was finished and car- 
ried away. In time it lay coiled on the deck of 
a great ship which sped back and forth on the 
ocean. There seemed no use for it, for the great 
anchor was never needed, and the chain lay 
there uncoiled. So years passed. But one night 
there was a terrible storm, and the ship was in 
sore peril of being hurled upon the rocks. Anchor 
after anchor was dropped, but none of them 
availed. The chains were broken like threads. 
At last the mighty sheet anchor was cast into the 
sea, and the old chain was quickly uncoiled and 
run out until it grew taut. All watched to see if 
it would bear the awful strain. It sang in the 
wild storm as the vessel's weight surged upon it. 
It was a moment of intense anxiety. It was the 
old smith fighting the storm. The ship, with its 
cargo of a thousand lives, depended upon this 
one chain. What now if the old smith had 
wrought carelessly even on one link of his chain ! 



198 FORGETTING DOES NOT SETTLE. 

But he had put honesty and truth and invincible 
strength into every part of it, and it stood the 
test, holding the ship in safety until the storm 
was over, and the morning came. 



* 



jforgettmcj Hoes not Settle ©cbts. 

If you owe a man some money, you may for- 
get the fact, but the debt remains. Forgetting it 
does not pay it. You may forget your old debts 
to God. They may cause you no more pain. 
But they are there yet, unsettled, and some day 
they will find you out. Some day the remem- 
brance will come back with terrible vividness. 
" Son, remember," said Abraham, in the Lord's 
parable to the rich man, and then recalled to 
him the story of his earthly life. Memory does 
not perish in the life beyond. It revives. You 
may write with lemon-juice page after page and 
no trace is left. The writing sinks away and dis- 
appears. But expose the paper to the heat and 
every letter will come out in bold, clear outline. 
So we write our life's record. We see no trace, 
and all seems lost and forgotten. But some day 
every word and act will flash out. Nothing that 



THE COST OF LIFE'S BLESSINGS. 199 

we do fails to be recorded. In the judgment day 
all will be brought out. Forgetfulness is a false 
refuge. 



ftfje Cost of 3Life's Blessings. 

As I read the ancient story of the love and 
heroism of David's mighty men, when they hewed 
their way through the lines of the Philistines, 
dropped the vessel into the cool well, drew up 
the sparkling water, and bore it back through the 
same hostile ranks to their fainting chief in the 
cave, another picture rises up before me. I see 
a world of men and women, shut up in the dark 
dungeons of sin. They bear marks of disaster 
and defeat. They have been driven away from 
the home of their childhood, and that home is 
now in the enemy's hands. Then I see one rise 
up in his might, his heart touched with pity and 
stirred with infinite love. Majesty is on his brow. 
Strength is in his arm. Compassion is in his eye. 
He goes forth alone, none of the people with him. 
Warlike hosts gather about the old lost well of 
life to hold it, but he moves on in calm majesty. 
I see him pass through the armed lines. There 
are tens of thousands against one. He is smitten 



200 THE COST OF LIFE'S BLESSINGS. 

on this side and on that. His back is torn with 
the scourge. His hands are pierced with nails. 
He dies on a cross. 

" Who is this that cometh from Edom, with 
dyed garments from Bozrah . . . glorious in his ap- 
parel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? " 
It is the Lord. He has cut his way through the 
hosts of his enemies. See, his garments are 
stained with blood. He fought for the old well 
by the gate, and comes bearing in his hands its 
cool, sweet water, to give to those that are thirsty. 
He has reconquered for our race the blessings of 
which sin had robbed us. He has gotten back 
for us the old home, with all its joys. He returns, 
marked with wounds, weary and dust- covered, 
bearing in his hands water, the water of life, from 
the old well. 

The blessings and hopes of Christian faith, 
which are so dear to us, are blood bought. By 
Christ's stripes we are healed. We have joy, 
because he endured sorrow. We have peace in 
the midst of storm, because he faced the tempest. 
We have forgiveness of sin, because the darkness 
gathered about his soul on the cross. We have 
life, eternal life, because he died in shame. 
The grave has no gloom for us, because he lay 
in it wrapping its glooms about his own soul. 
Every blessing comes to us baptized with blood, 



HEROISM IN DUTY, 201 

the blood of the Son of God. The hands that 
save us are pierced hands, pierced in saving us. 



* 



fifattfem in ©utg. 

Luther, on his way to Worms, was warned and 
dissuaded by his friends as he passed by. Close 
to the town his beloved friend Spalatin sent to 
beg him not to venture into the dangers which 
he knew awaited him. " Were there as many 
devils in Worms as there are tiles on the roofs I 
would go in," was his immortal reply. 

It is not enough for us merely to admire the 
Reformer in his heroic devotion to duty; we 
must seek to get the same spirit into our own 
hearts. We shall have hard duties before us, and 
friends will throw about us the silken cords of 
endearment to detain us. Then we must be 
brave, to go on and do what Christ bids, regard- 
less of love's persuasions and all the terrors of 
enemies. 



THE EVER-WATCHFUL EYE. 



STfje 3Ebn*=5Matdjfut 35ge. 

Go where we may we cannot get away from 
the calm, clear gaze of the divine Eye. Neither 
in the blue depths of the heavens, nor in the dark 
abysses of the grave can one hide away from 
God. If we could take the morning sunbeams 
for wings and fly away on them with all the swift- 
ness of light to the remotest bounds of space, we 
could not get beyond the reach of the divine 
Eye. If we creep into the darkness, darkness so 
deep and dense that no human eye can behold us, 
still God sees us as clearly as if we stood in the 
bright noon-day sunshine. Darkness hides not 
from him. Night shines to his eye as brightly as 
day. 

When we know that God loves us, there is 
infinite comfort in this thought of his unsleeping 
watchfulness. It is our Father who watches. 
There ought also to be wondrous incitement and 
inspiration in this consciousness ; while the Eye 
of divine love is looking upon us we should always 
do our best. 



LIFTING UP THE BOWED DOWN. 203 



^Lifting tip tfje JSofoeti SBoforu 

In the Dore Gallery in London there is a 
picture, the foreground of which consists of 
groups of people, rich and poor, young and old, 
kings and beggars, all turning beseeching looks 
upon a far-away figure. It is the Saviour, clothed 
in robes of dazzling whiteness, bearing a cross, 
with a hand uplifted, beckoning all these broken- 
hearted ones, captives and sorrow-laden ones, to 
come to him for rest. That is always a true 
picture of Christ. He is saying to every soul 
bowed down, "Thou art loosed." I care not 
what the bonds are that bind you; I care not 
how deformed your life is, how bent, how crooked ; 
I care not what it may have been that bowed you 
down, nor how long you may have bent together 
— I say to you, there is One who can loose your 
chains and make you straight. He who by word 
and touch made a crooked, stiffened body erect 
and lithe, lifting the face from its downward gaz- 
ing to look up into the face divine, can do the 
same for the soul that is bent in the most hideous 
deformity. 



* 



204 THE MINISTRY OF LOVE. 



2Rje iWmfetrg of 3L0&0. 

A lovely woman learned of a district in a great 
city whose people are ruled by the lowest pas- 
sions. They live in wretchedness and degrada- 
tion. Moved by a loving pity, she leaves her own 
happy home, and goes to live in the midst of 
these debased men and women. She moves in 
and out among them. She teaches their children. 
She visits their miserable abodes when they are 
sick, and ministers to their needs. It is costly 
serving for her. She suffers terribly in her sensi- 
tive soul from their abject wickedness. But she 
makes no complaint, and continues to live out 
her sweet, pure life among them. Her goodness 
touches their vileness and begins to dispel it. 
Her love blesses their soiled lives. 

There she stays, loving, patient, a ministering 
angel, giving out her life, until that spot of 
wretchedness has begun to change. The degra- 
dation yields to purity. Into the squalor of their 
homes come bits of beauty, hints of refinement. 
On the Sabbath you may see this fair angel- 
woman, with a company of restored lives about 
her which she has lifted up out of sin and debase- 
ment, by the mighty power of her pure, unselfish 
love. That is Christlike serving. 



THE STORY OF THE OLD TREE. 205 



JMtgton for Wizzk Bags* 

Religion is living out the principles of Chris- 
tianity in one's ordinary week-day life. It is get- 
ting the Bible and the prayers and the services 
into thought and act and character. We must 
not cut our lives in two, and call one part secular, 
governing it by one set of principles, and then 
regard the other part as sacred, to be controlled 
by another set of rules. All life should be made 
religious in the sense that everything is to be 
done in such a way as to please God, under the 
direction of his counsel. We have just as much 
religion as we get into our week-day life, and not 
a whit more. Whatsoever we do, even to eating 
and drinking, we should do in the name of the 
Lord Jesus. 

ftfje Storg of tfje ©to &xtz. 

Krummacher has a pleasant little legend of 
Zaccheus, who found Christ by getting into a 
sycamore-tree. Krummacher says that in his old 
age Zaccheus still dwelt at Jericho, humble and 
pious before God and man. Every morning at 
sunrise he would go out to the fields for a walk. 



206 THE STORY OF THE OLD TREE. 

After these walks he always came back with a 
quiet, happy mind, to begin his day's work. His 
wife noticed his unvarying habit, and became 
curious to know where he went and what he did. 
One day she secretly followed him. He went 
straight to that tree from which he first saw the 
Lord. Hiding herself from his view, she watched 
him. He took a pitcher and poured water upon 
the roots of the tree, which were getting dry in 
the sultry heat. Then he pulled up a few weeds 
he found growing there. After this, he looked 
up long and lovingly at the branches, where he 
had sat that blessed day, when he first saw Jesus. 
At last, with a patient, grateful smile upon his 
face, he returned to his home. 

Is there no suggestion in this for members of 
the church ? Was it not in the church that you 
first saw Christ ? Is not the place sacred to your 
heart? Should you not do for your church what 
Zaccheus did for his tree ? Should you not daily 
water its roots by your prayers and tears and 
toils? Should you not seek to keep the weeds 
away from about it, at least so far as your own 
life is concerned? Should you not do all you 
can in some way to cherish it and make it pros- 
perous, a place of blessing to many more, as it 
has been to you? Your labor will not be in vain 
in the Lord. 



THE REFUGE OF MERCY. 207 



2Cfje 3&rfuge of ifHercg, 

There is a story of a man who dreams he is 
out in an open field in a fierce, driving storm. He 
is wildly seeking a refuge. He sees one gate 
over which " Holiness " is written. There seems 
to be shelter inside, and he knocks. The door 
is opened by one in white garments, but none, 
save the holy, can be admitted ; and he is not 
holy. So he hurries on to seek shelter elsewhere. 
He sees another gate and tries that, but "Truth " 
is inscribed above it, and he is not fit to enter. 
He hastens on to a third, which is the palace of 
Justice ; but armed sentinels keep the door, and 
only the righteous can be received. At last, 
when he is almost in despair, he sees a light shin- 
ing some distance away and hastens toward it. 
The door stands wide open, and beautiful angels 
meet him with welcomes of joy. It is the house 
of Mercy, and he is taken in and finds refuge 
from the storm, and is hospitably entertained. 

None of us can ever find a refuge at any door, 
save at the door of mercy. But here the vilest 
sinner can find eternal shelter ; and not mere cold 
shelter only, for God's mercy is tender. We flee 
for refuge and find it. Strong walls shut out all 
pursuing enemies, and cover us from all storms. 



208 HOW SIN DESTROYS BEAUTY. 

Then, as we begin to rejoice in our security, we 
learn that we are inside a sweet home, and not 
merely in a secure shelter. Our refuge is in the 
very heart of God ; and no mother's bosom was 
ever so warm a nest for her own child as is the 
divine mercy for all who find refuge in it. 



* 



p^ofo Sin ©estrogs 3Seautg, 

One of the most famous pictures in the world 
is the Last Supper, by Leonardo da Vinci. Jesus 
sits at the table with his twelve apostles. It is 
said that the artist sought long for a model for 
the Saviour. He wanted a young man of pure, 
holy look. At length his attention was fixed on 
a chorister in the Cathedral, named Pietro Ban- 
dinelli. This young man had a very noble face 
and a devout demeanor. Leonardo used him as a 
model in painting the face of the Master. Soon 
after, this Pietro went to Rome to study music. 
There he fell among evil companions and was 
led to drink, and then into all manner of de- 
basing sins. Year after year the painter went 
on with his great picture. 

All the apostles were now painted save one — 



THE TOUCH OF HIS HAND. 209 

Judas, the traitor. Da Vinci went from place to 
place, looking for some debased man who would 
be suitable as a model. He was walking one day 
on the streets of Milan, watching the faces of the 
evil men he chanced to meet, when his eye fell 
on one who seemed to have in his features the 
character he sought. He was a miserable, un- 
clean beggar, wearing rags, with villainous look. 
This man sat as the artist's model for Judas. 
After the face was painted, Da Vinci learned that 
the man who had sat for him was his old friend, 
Pietro Bandinelli, the same who had sat a few 
years before as the model for the Master. Wick- 
edness had debased the beautiful life into hideous 
deformity. Sin distorts, deforms, and destroys 
the human soul. It drags it down from its erect- 
ness until it grovels in the dust. 



3T{je Cone?) of $?fe JifantJ. 

One of Wellington's officers, when commanded 
to go on some perilous duty, lingered a moment 
as if afraid, and then said, " Let me have one 
clasp of your all-conquering hand before I go ; 
and then I can do it." Seek the clasp of Christ's 



210 THE TOUCH OF CHRIST. 

hand before every bit of work, every hard task, 
every battle, every good deed. Bend your head 
in the dewy freshness of every morning, ere you 
go forth to meet the day's duties and perils, and 
wait for the benediction of Christ, as he lays his 
hands upon you. They are hands of blessing. 
Their touch will inspire you for courage and 
strength and all beautiful and noble living. 



* 



ftfje £oud) oi (Ifjrist 

During our Civil War word came to a mother 
that her boy had been wounded. She found her 
way to the hospital at the front. The doctor said 
to her, " Your boy is fast asleep. If you go in 
and wake him the excitement will kill him. By 
and by, when he wakes, I will break the news to 
him gradually." The mother, with her great 
hungry heart yearning to see her boy, looked into 
the doctor's face and said, " He may never waken. 
If you will let me sit by his side I promise not to 
speak to him." The doctor consented. She 
crept to the side of the cot and looked into the 
face of her boy. How she longed to embrace 
him ! She could not resist laying her gentle, 



THE TOUCH OF CHRIST. 21 1 

loving hand on his forehead. The moment her 
fingers touched the boy's brow his lips moved 
and he whispered, without opening his eyes, 
" Mother, you have come." Even in his sleep 
he knew that touch of love. 

The human touch on lives that need comfort, 
healing, and blessing, carries wonderful power. 
But shall we not bow our heads for the touch of 
Christ himself? He lays his hand gently and 
lovingly upon our brow. Some of us may be 
in sorrow ; some are in care ; some have their 
burdens. But do you not recognize that soft 
touch of Christ's hand, the hand that the nail 
pierced? May the touch give joy and blessing 
to every one ! 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Appreciation Too Late 174 

At the Door 127 

Baby in the Flood, The 185 

Back unto its Nest Again 144 

Beauty of God's Will, The 176 

Be Faithful and Wait 118 

Best yet in Store, The 119 

Blessed are the Hungry . . „ 163 

Blessing of a Sunbeam, The 66 

Brand from the Fire, A 116 

Breaking down the Fences 105 

Building beyond the Skies 166 

Building of the Minster, The 69 

Bunker Hill Monument 5 

Buried Souls 23 

Call no Duty Small 97 

Calmness of Peace, The 48 

Chimes of St. Nicholas, The 180 

Choice that Decides Destiny, The 188 

Christ's Errand First 93 

Christ's Wonderful Love 111 

Conquering to Save 78 

Contracting Walls, The 193 

Cost of Life's Best, The 63 

Cost of Life's Blessings, The 199 

213 



214 INDEX. 

PAGE 

Darkening by Our Own Shadow 173 

Dead, with the Form of Life 116 

Each in His Own Way . . 16 

Earth's Broken Music 50 

Easy to Hurt Others 61 

Emblem of Peace, The 177 

Ever- Watchful Eye, The 202 

Failing of God's Intent 130 

Fainting at the Door 107 

Finding its Wings 152 

Finding the Imprisoned King 18 

Flowers of Prayer 136 

For the Asking 102 

For the Love that is in It 55 

For the Lord's Treasury 45 

For the Master's Eye 41 

For the Master's Sake 187 

Forgetting does not Settle Debts 198 

Fragrance of a Gentle Life, The 38 

Fragrance of Prayer, The 14 

Friendship's Perfect Trust 42 

From Desert to Garden 170 

From Torch to Torch 53 

Gate of Life, The 103 

Getting Ready for Dark Paths 171 

Glorifying of Life, The 151 

God Wants Our Best 168 

Good Men Wanted 20 

Guided by Love's Songs 28 

Heaven Helping the Weary 37 

Heaven is Far Better 162 

" He Died for Me "............,. 146 



INDEX. 1 15 



PAGE 

He Knows His Own 179 

Helping While We May 49 

Heroic Faithfulness 123 

Heroism in Duty , 201 

He That is Faithful 36 

His Blessing Multiplies 138 

How a Day May be Lost 154 

How a Wrong Heart Mars 120 

How Sin Destroys Beauty 208 

How We Make Crosses 51 

Human Touch, The 3 2 

" If a Little Child Comes " 133 

Image on the Soiled Napkin, The 122 

Immortality of Influence 94 

Importance of Little Faithfulnesses, The 196 

In the Bright Days 117 

In the Rugged Hills 10 

Into the Marvellous Light 193 

" In Whatso We Share" 46 

" It is only Pearls" 81 

Keeping the Life White 14 

Led by a Lamb 22 

" Legend Beautiful, The " 147 

Legend of the Handkerchief, The 67 

Lesson from Two Birds, A 128 

Let Him Have All 35 

Let Your Light Shine 88 

Life out of Death 8 

Life's Sorest Loss 62 

Life's Tragicalness 142 

Lifting up the Bowed Down 203 

Light on the Billow's Crest 21 

Living Sweetly amid Trials 140 



2i6 INDEX. 

PAGE 

Love Blossoming too Late 89 

Love Giving Life 141 

Love's Answer to Men's Hate 83 

Love's Greatest Gift 153 

Man's Two Guardian Angels 169 

Marks of the Lord Jesus, The 178 

Master's Name, The no 

Master's Touch, The . 129 

Meaning of Time, The 80 

Meet for the Master's Use 27 

Ministry of Love, The 204 

Ministry without Words, A 107 

Mirroring the Divine Love 186 

Misinterpretation 40 

Most Precious Thing, The 134 

Music in the Storm 113 

Nest in the Crag, The 6 

Night Shows the Stars 137 

Noble Life, The 124 

Not Destroyed, but Beautified 165 

Not Ours to See and Know 85 

Old Smith and the Storm, The 197 

" One of the Least of These " 139 

One Step Enough for Me 106 

Only a Bit of Glass 191 

Only True Living, The 160 

On the Cathedral Rafter 17 

On the Wings of His Song ' 71 

Out of Life's Silences y . . 104 

Out of the Spoiled Stone 65 

Peril of Little Sins, The 182 

Petted but not Changed 126 



INDEX. 217 

PAGE 

Picture of Peace, A 10 

Place of Peace, The 131 

Post-Mortem Kindnesses 7 

Power of Habit 82 

Power of the Sweeter Song, The 158 

Power of Unselfishness, The 149 

Preaching as We Walk 56 

Print of the Nails, The 95 

Quiet Volcano, The 126 

Reaching Home at Last 74 

Recognition in Heaven 92 

Reflecting the Divine Beauty 175 

Refuge of Mercy, The 207 

Religion for Week Days 205 

Revealing of Experience, The 60 

Saved by the Lamb 99 

Seeing not the Danger 155 

Self in Love's Fire 33 

Seriousness of Living, The 164 

Sermon to the Birds, A 156 

Shadow of the Mountain, The 25 

Soldier at Prayer, The 34 

So Loved that He Gave 159 

Splendor of Lowly Duty 79 

Stored Joy Gladding Sorrow 43 

Storing Away Beauty no 

Story of a Lily, The 189 

Story of a Potted Rose 108 

Story of Consecration, A 86 

Story of the Old Tree, The 205 

Sunbeam and the Foul Drop, The 100 

Sure Relief at Last 91 

Sweet Out of Bitter 73 



218 INDEX. 

PAGE 

That a Child May See 58 

This is not the End 147 

Things We Can Never get Over 135 

Till the Sun Goes Down 183 

" Thou Knowest not Now" 87 

Through Mists to Sunlight 150 

Touch of Christ, The 210 

Touch of His Hand, The 209 

True Problem, The 68 

Unconscious Ministry 11 

Under the Master's Hand 12 

Undeveloped Beauty 101 

Unfastened Door, The 144 

Unquenchable Joy, The 161 

Unrecognized Angels 98 

Unrecognized Opportunities 195 

Unspotted from the World 186 

Until He Find It 24 

Vision of Faithfulness, A 52 

Wafted Leaf, The 114 

We Cannot Hide from God 112 

Weights and Wings 54 

Well by the Sea, The jj 

What Christian Dying Is 75 

What Grace Can Do 59 

When No One is Watching 172 

Word is nigh Thee, The 125 

Work that Lasts, The 30 

Worth Living For 76 

Wrecker's Lights, The 26 

Your Own Cross the Best 31 



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